SynthesisImmunity, inflammation and disease2021
Efficacy and safety of arbidol (umifenovir) in patients with COVID-19: A systematic review and meta-analysis.
Synthesis in Immunity, inflammation and disease, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers, 5 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
16 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 34 citations in OpenAlex.
- AGIHO guideline on evidence-based management of COVID-19 in cancer patients: 2022 update on vaccination, pharmacological prophylaxis and therapy in light of the omicron variants.European journal of cancer (Oxford, England : 1990) · 2023Guideline
- Efficacy and safety of nirmatrelvir/ritonavir (Paxlovid) for COVID-19: A rapid review and meta-analysis.Journal of medical virology · 2023Pooled it
- Artesunate, imatinib, and infliximab in COVID-19: A rapid review and meta-analysis of current evidence.Immunity, inflammation and disease · 2022Pooled it
- Meta-analysis of arbidol versus lopinavir/ritonavir in the treatment of coronavirus disease 2019.Journal of medical virology · 2022Pooled it
- Efficacy and safety of arbidol (umifenovir) in patients with COVID-19: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Immunity, inflammation and disease · 2021Pooled it
- Trial
- Enhanced Antiviral Activity of Novel Umifenovir Derivatives against SARS-CoV-2: Insights from an International Collaborative Study.ACS omega · 2026Article
- Supercomputing Multi-Ligand Modeling, Simulation, Wavelet Analysis and Surface Plasmon Resonance to Develop Novel Combination Drugs: A Case Study of Arbidol and Baicalein Against Main Protease of SARS-CoV-2.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Indole-Based Compounds as Potential Drug Candidates for SARS-CoV-2.Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Review
- Protein structure-based in-silico approaches to drug discovery: Guide to COVID-19 therapeutics.Molecular aspects of medicine · 2023Review
- Antiviral Therapy of COVID-19.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Review
- A Comparison of Etiology, Pathogenesis, Vaccinal and Antiviral Drug Development between Influenza and COVID-19.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Review
- Inhibitory effect of napabucasin on arbidol metabolism and its mechanism research.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2023Article
- Effective degradation of COVID-19 related drugs by biochar-supported red mud catalyst activated persulfate process: Mechanism and pathway.Journal of cleaner production · 2022Article
- Approaches to the Potential Therapy of COVID-19: A General Overview from the Medicinal Chemistry Perspective.Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Review
- Article
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 at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo provide the latest evidence for the efficacy and safety of arbidol (umifenovir) in COVID-19 treatment.
methodsA literature systematic search was carried out in PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, and medRxiv up to May 2021. The Cochrane risk of bias tool and Newcastle-Ottawa scale were used to assess the quality of included studies. Meta-analysis was performed using RevMan 5.3.
resultsSixteen studies were met the inclusion criteria. No significant difference was observed between arbidol and non-antiviral treatment groups neither for primary outcomes, including the negative rate of PCR (NR-PCR) on Day 7 (risk ratio [RR]: 0.94; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.78-1.14) and Day 14 (RR: 1.10; 95% CI: 0.96-1.25), and PCR negative conversion time (PCR-NCT; mean difference [MD]: 0.74; 95% CI: -0.87 to 2.34), nor secondary outcomes (p > .05). However, arbidol was associated with higher adverse events (RR: 2.24; 95% CI: 1.06-4.73). Compared with lopinavir/ritonavir, arbidol showed better efficacy for primary outcomes (p < .05). Adding arbidol to lopinavir/ritonavir also led to better efficacy in terms of NR-PCR on Day 7 and PCR-NCT (p < .05). There was no significant difference between arbidol and chloroquine in primary outcomes (p > .05). No remarkable therapeutic effect was observed between arbidol and other agents (p > .05).
conclusionThe present meta-analysis showed no significant benefit of using arbidol compared with non-antiviral treatment or other therapeutic agents against COVID-19 disease. High-quality studies are needed to establish the efficacy and safety of arbidol for COVID-19.
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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.