{"doi":"10.1101/2022.06.06.22275902","title":"Early Treatment of Favipiravir in COVID-19 Patients Without Pneumonia: A Multicentre, Open-Labelled, Randomized Control Study","abstract":"Abstract We investigated Favipiravir (FPV) efficacy in mild cases of COVID-19 without pneumonia and its effects towards viral clearance, clinical condition, and risk of COVID-19 pneumonia development. PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2-infected patients without pneumonia were enrolled (2:1) within 10 days of symptomatic onset into FPV and control arms. The former received 1800 mg FPV twice-daily (BID) on Day 1 and 800 mg BID 5-14 days thereafter until negative viral detection, while the latter received supportive care only. The primary endpoint was time to clinical improvement, which was defined by a reduced National Early Warning Score (NEWS) or score of ≤1. 62 patients (41 female) comprised the FPV arm (median age: 32 years, median BMI: 22 kg/m²) and 31 patients (19 female) comprised the control arm (median age: 28 years, median BMI: 22 kg/m². The median time to sustained clinical improvement by NEWS was 2 vs 14 days for FPV and control arms respectively (adjusted hazard ratio (aHR) of 2.77, 95% CI 1.57-4.88, P <0.001). The FPV arm also had significantly higher likelihoods of clinical improvement within 14 days after enrolment by NEWS (79% vs 32% respectively, P <0.001), particularly female patients (aOR 6.35, 95% CI 1.49-27.07, P <0.001). 8 (12.9%) and 7 (22.6%) patients in FPV and control arms developed mild pneumonia at a median (range) 6.5 (1-13) and 7 (1-13) days after treatment, respectively ( P = 0.316); all recovered well without complications. We can conclude that early treatment of FPV in symptomatic COVID-19 patients without pneumonia was associated with faster clinical improvement.","journal":"medRxiv","year":2022,"id":298690,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":5,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9578,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":987692,"name":"Weerawat Manosuthi","orcid":"0000-0003-2583-9390","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":987693,"name":"Suvimol Niyomnaitham","orcid":"0000-0002-4785-2716","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":254201,"name":"Andrew Owen","orcid":"0000-0002-9819-7651","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":987694,"name":"Katherine Copeland","orcid":"0009-0004-8609-8041","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":775158,"name":"Lantharita Charoenpong","orcid":"0000-0003-3811-0267","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":987695,"name":"Manoch Rattanasompattikul","orcid":"0000-0002-1150-2597","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":390429,"name":"Surakameth Mahasirimongkol","orcid":"0000-0002-7555-1056","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":398172,"name":"Kulkanya Chokephaibulkit","orcid":"0000-0002-0140-4600","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":775177,"name":"Rujipas Sirijatuphat","orcid":"0000-0003-1486-5550","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":51,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T00:31:36.269611Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}