Medical treatment of 55 patients with COVID-19 from seven cities in northeast China who fully recovered: a single-center, retrospective, observational study

Lichao Fan; Chang Liu; Na Li; Huan Liu; Ye Gu; Yongyu Liu; Yu Chen

Liu et al. 4 Ribavirin and interferon are also mentioned in the COVID-19 Diagnosis and Treatment Plan; 2 in the present study, four patients in the mild group (7·27%) were administered ribavirin combined with antiviral therapy. Nucleoside analogs theoretically ought to possess anti-coronavirus activity to a certain extent; 8 however, ribavirin was found to have a minimal antiviral effect against coronavirus in vitro. 9 In the present study, 20 patients received aerosol inhalation of alpha-interferon soon after diagnosis (50 µg, twice per day). A retrospective study of patients with Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in 2019 showed that interferon did not accelerate virus clearance, 10 while a study of patients with SARS showed that alpha-interferon did not improve the patients' prognosis. 11 In the present study, a small number of patients were treated with ribavirin, and alpha-interferon was simply used to assist aerosol inhalation. Therefore, the usefulness of these two drugs for patients with COVID-19 is difficult to evaluate.