Mexico mulls purchasing Russian-made antiviral drug Avifavir - embassy

SOCIETY: PANDEMIC-MEXICO-RUSSIA-MEDICINE Mexico mulls purchasing Russian-made antiviral drug Avifavir - embassy MEXICO, July 15. /TASS/. The Mexican authorities are negotiating the purchases of Russian-made antiviral drug Avifavir for the treatment of novel coronavirus patients, a spokesman for the Russian embassy in Mexico, Yevgeny Nenashkin, told TASS. "The Russian embassy gave the Mexican Foreign Ministry information about the drug and the possibility of purchasing it," Nenashkin said. "The ministry is working on this issue via the Foreign Ministry channels, and, apparently, through its embassy." "No concrete delivery volumes are known so far, but the negotiation process is under way," he added. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said told reporters on Tuesday that his country would start purchasing foreign medicines under the UN supervision, with an aim to solve the problem of availability of drugs for COVID-19 treatment. According to the latest reports, a total of 311,486 novel coronavirus cases have been registered in Mexico since late February, including 7,051 in the past day. A total of 836 novel coronavirus patients died in the country in the reported period, bringing the overall death toll to 36,327. Avifavir is produced by a joint venture of RDIF and ChemRar Group. It is one of the two registered COVID-19 drugs in the world. Avifavir has also become the first Favipiravir-based drug in the world approved for treatment of COVID-19. It has shown high efficacy in clinical trials, disrupting the reproduction mechanisms of coronavirus. On May 29, Avifavir received a registration certificate from Russia’s Ministry of Health and became the first Russian drug approved for treatment of COVID-19 patients. On June 3, the Ministry of Health included Avifavir in the seventh edition of the guidelines for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of the novel coronavirus infection.