Favipiravir versus Arbidol for COVID-19: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Chang Chen; Jianying Huang; Zhenshun Cheng; Jianyuan Wu; Song Chen; Yongxi Zhang; Bo Chen; Mengxin Lu; Yongwen Luo; Jingyi Zhang; Ping Yin; Xinghuan Wang

A total of 240 patients with COVID-19 were enrolled, in which 236 took at least one dosage of drug were considered as the full analysis set (FAS) (Figure S1 -S2). The FAS set includes 116 in the Favipiravir group and 120 in the Arbidol group (Table 1 Main signs and symptoms for enrolled patients were pyrexia, fatigue, dry cough, myalgia, dyspnea, expectoration, sore throat, diarrhea, dizziness, insomnia and conjunctivitis, none of which were significantly different between groups. There was no difference between the time from onset of patient symptoms to time of treatment initiation between groups. Neither the SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid tests, lymphocyte count, erythrocyte sedimentation rate and C-reactive protein differed between groups (Table 1) . 116 cases in Favipiravir group and 119 in Arbidol group underwent chest CT, in which 112 (96.55%) and 114 (95.80%) were diagnosed COVID-19 pneumonia according to the diagnostic criteria (P=0.7635). Overall, no significant difference of basic characteristics of patients between the two groups was observed. However, we noticed a marginally increased ratio of severe to critical patients in the Favipiravir group (16 (severe)+2 (critical)) compared to Arbidol group (8+1) (P=0.0658, Fisher's All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission.