SynthesisBMC infectious diseases2021
Favipiravir for the treatment of patients with COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Synthesis in BMC infectious diseases, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 66 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
66 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Adaptations in the role of pharmacists under the conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC health services research · 2023Pooled it
- The efficacy and adverse effects of favipiravir on patients with COVID-19: A systematic review and meta-analysis of published clinical trials and observational studies.International journal of infectious diseases : IJID : official publication of the International Society for Infectious Diseases · 2022Pooled it
- Potential limitations in systematic review studies assessing the effect of the main intervention for treatment/therapy of COVID-19 patients: An overview.Frontiers in medicine · 2022Pooled it
- Oral Favipiravir Exposure and Pharmacodynamic Effects in Adult Outpatients With Acute Influenza.The Journal of infectious diseases · 2024Trial
- Early treatment of Favipiravir in COVID-19 patients without pneumonia: a multicentre, open-labelled, randomized control study.Emerging microbes & infections · 2022Trial
- Efficacy of favipiravir in adults with mild COVID-19: a randomized, double-blind, multicentre, placebo-controlled clinical trial.Clinical microbiology and infection : the official publication of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases · 2022Trial
- Review on drug repositioning of some FDA-approved drugs for treatment of cancer/microbial diseases.RSC advances · 2026Review
- Hydrogen-Bond-Assisted Hydroxylation ofMolecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- A Box-Behnken design-assisted RP-HPLC method development and optimization for simultaneous determination of four antiviral drugs in pharmaceutical dosage forms.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Favipiravir treatment in Thai children with COVID-19: effectiveness, safety, and modeling drug exposure.Asian biomedicine : research, reviews and news · 2026Article
- On the ozonation of anti-SARS-CoV-2 substances and their nucleoside analogues for mechanistic understanding of the ozone induced transformation using HPLC-ESI-Q-TOF-HRMS.RSC advances · 2026Article
- Investigation of the functional hot-spot residues of an enzyme by real-time monitoring of the enzymatic reaction using NMR and computational approaches.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Physicochemical Properties and Molecular Insights of Favipiravir and Roflumilast Solid Dispersions for COVID-19 Treatment.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Clinical characteristics, outcomes, and costs of COVID-19 patients in Thai hospitels: a comparative analysis based on chest X-ray findings.BMC infectious diseases · 2025Article
- Annual SZ: An Alternative Immunotherapy for COVID-19 and Long COVID.Infectious disorders drug targets · 2025Review
- Assessing favipiravir impact on SARS-CoV-2 transmission within households: Insights from a multi-center study (FaviPrev).Journal of virus eradication · 2024Article
- Article
- Adverse drug reactions associated with COVID-19 management.Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's archives of pharmacology · 2024Review
- Investigation of substituent effects on the electronic structure and antiviral activity of favipiravir derivatives for Covid-19 treatment using DFT and molecular docking.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- The clinical features, treatment and prognosis of neutropenic fever and Coronavirus disease 2019 results of the multicentre teos study.Scientific reports · 2024Article
6 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundFavipiravir possesses high utility for treating patients with COVID-19. However, research examining the efficacy and safety of favipiravir for patients with COVID-19 is limited.
methodsWe conducted a systematic review of published studies reporting the efficacy of favipiravir against COVID-19. Two investigators independently searched PubMed, the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, MedRxiv, and ClinicalTrials.gov (inception to September 2020) to identify eligible studies. A meta-analysis was performed to measure viral clearance and clinical improvement as the primary outcomes.
resultsAmong 11 eligible studies, 5 included a comparator group. Comparing to the comparator group, the favipiravir group exhibited significantly better viral clearance on day 7 after the initiation of treatment (odds ratio [OR] = 2.49, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.19-5.22), whereas no difference was noted on day 14 (OR = 2.19, 95% CI = 0.69-6.95). Although clinical improvement was significantly better in the favipiravir group on both days 7 and 14, the improvement was better on day 14 (OR = 3.03, 95% CI = 1.17-7.80) than on day 7 (OR = 1.60, 95% CI = 1.03-2.49). The estimated proportions of patients with viral clearance in the favipiravir arm on days 7 and 14 were 65.42 and 88.9%, respectively, versus 43.42 and 78.79%, respectively, in the comparator group. The estimated proportions of patients with clinical improvement on days 7 and 14 in the favipiravir group were 54.33 and 84.63%, respectively, compared with 34.40 and 65.77%, respectively, in the comparator group.
conclusionsFavipiravir induces viral clearance by 7 days and contributes to clinical improvement within 14 days. The results indicated that favipiravir has strong possibility for treating COVID-19, especially in patients with mild-to-moderate illness. Additional well-designed studies, including examinations of the dose and duration of treatment, are crucial for reaching definitive conclusions.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.