“Japan has taken an interesting approach. Now, they feature favipiravir as the oral antiviral, but they don’t use it at home so they tend to hospitalize. They have tremendous hospital capacity there. So, they start favipiravir very early, but they hospitalize patients and observe them. They may combine them with antibiotics, then later with steroids. But they have managed to keep their case count down and the mortality rate down, but they have very long hospital stays. Favipiravir, like the other antiviral drugs, whether this be an antibody infusion, hydroxychloroquine, or ivermectin, they work by speeding the clearance of the virus from the nasopharyngeal tract and also reducing the density of viral replication. Now, they don’t by any means cure the infection, but in my view, they do play an assistive role.”
Dr. Peter McCullough, Source
“I give a lot of credit to countries that just early on did smart things. So, for instance, there is a Japanese drug called favipiravir. It inhibits the RNA-dependent polymerase of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. It’s been used for years in Japan for influenza. It has a mechanism similar to that of remdesivir. What did Russia do? What did India, Pakistan, other countries…? They right away onboarded favipiravir. It was like Tamiflu, but except for COVID-19. I give them a lot of credit for doing that.”
Dr. Peter McCullough, Source