300,000 oral pills for COVID-19 patients to arrive in HCM City
A batch of 300,000 Molnupiravir pills used to treat COVID-19 patients is projected to arrive in Ho Chi Minh City, the nation's current largest coronavirus hotspot, on August 23, according to newswire Zing News.
300,000 oral pills for COVID-19 patients is scheduled to arrive in Ho Chi Minh City on August 23's evening (Photo: dangcongsan.vn)
The delivery will mark the arrival of an initial batch of 2.5 million pills purchased by Vietnam as part of a pilot home treatment programme for COVID-19 patients in the southern city.
Molnupiravir is notable for being one of the drugs that has been evaluated to quickly reduce the impact of the virus on patients. The drugs also showed positive results and was deemed safe in human clinic trials conducted in India and the United States.
Earlier an assessment on the efficacy and safety of the drug was conducted at medical facilities from August 16 to August 22 before launching a pilot scheme in the community.
The Ministry of Health will also continue to call on businesses to boost their imports of drug and pharmaceutical firms in order to negotiate with Molnupiravir producers regarding production technology transfer.
This comes after 50,000 vials of Remdesivir, a much-sought-after drug used to treat COVID-19 globally, also arrived in Ho Chi Minh City on August 21.
The shipment makes up part of the 500,000 Remdesivir vials purchased by Vingroup, a leading Vietnamese multi-sectoral conglomerate, after being imported from India and donated to the Ministry of Health for COVID-19 emergency treatment.
Remdesivir is a broad-spectrum antiviral drug, manufactured by India’s Cipla Pharmaceutical Company after permission was granted by US-based Gilead Sciences, the developer of the drug.
