In an effort to provide better treatment for COVID-19 patients and help bring down the mortality rate from the pandemic, the government has begun securing a substantial amount of therapeutics that could work against the disease.
Data from the Office of the Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Minister show that the government has given the go-ahead to contractors to import COVID-19 therapeutics such as remdesivir, favipiravir, oseltamivir and lopinavir-ritonavir, all of which will be distributed directly to hospitals treating coronavirus patients.
The data show that by the end of 2020, the government expects to secure 670,000 vials of remdesivir from foreign sources, but expects the drug to be manufactured in the country starting in November.
Remdesivir has been the only therapeutic so far to have worked directly against the coronavirus. A five-day course of the antivira…
