Trial reportClinical microbiology and infection : the official publication of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases2022
Efficacy of favipiravir in adults with mild COVID-19: a randomized, double-blind, multicentre, placebo-controlled clinical trial.
Trial report in Clinical microbiology and infection : the official publication of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 49 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
49 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 100 citations in OpenAlex.
- Drug treatments for mild or moderate covid-19: systematic review and network meta-analysis.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2025Pooled it
- Favipiravir for treating COVID-19.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2024Pooled it
- Outpatient randomized controlled trials to reduce COVID-19 hospitalization: Systematic review and meta-analysis.Journal of medical virology · 2023Pooled it
- Clinical antiviral efficacy of favipiravir in early COVID-19 (PLATCOV): an open-label, randomised, controlled, adaptive platform trial.BMC infectious diseases · 2024Trial
- Favipiravir in the Treatment of Outpatient COVID-19: A Multicenter, Randomized, Triple-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Clinical Trial.Advances in respiratory medicine · 2023Trial
- Identification of (20R)-protopanaxadiol from Panax ginseng as a novel anti-SARS-CoV-2 compound.FEBS open bio · 2026Article
- Favipiravir treatment in Thai children with COVID-19: effectiveness, safety, and modeling drug exposure.Asian biomedicine : research, reviews and news · 2026Article
- How Can Pharmacology Help Us Overcome the Challenges of Drug Repositioning as Antivirals to Treat Emerging Pathogens? The Example of Covid-19.Clinical and translational science · 2026Review
- Rapid Discovery of Potent Neutralizing Antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 through Directed Evolution of SARS-CoV-1 Antibodies.Molecular pharmaceutics · 2025Article
- A deep drug prediction framework for viral infectious diseases using an optimizer-based ensemble of convolutional neural network: COVID-19 as a case study.Molecular diversity · 2025Article
- Antivirals in COVID-19: A Focus on Pediatric Cardiac Patients.The Canadian journal of infectious diseases & medical microbiology = Journal canadien des maladies infectieuses et de la microbiologie medicale · 2025Review
- Comparative Preclinical Pharmacokinetics and Disposition of Favipiravir Following Pulmonary and Oral Administration as Potential Adjunct Therapy Against Airborne RNA Viruses.Pharmaceutical research · 2024Article
- COVID-19 therapeutics.Clinical microbiology reviews · 2024Review
- Article
- Safety and efficacy of favipiravir in COVID-19 patients with pneumonia. A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study (FAVID).Pneumonia (Nathan Qld.) · 2024Article
- Effects of antivirals on patients with COVID-19 breakthrough.BMC infectious diseases · 2024Article
- Clinical development of antivirals against SARS-CoV-2 and its variants.Current research in microbial sciences · 2024Review
- A Comprehensive Review of the Clinical Pharmacokinetics, Pharmacodynamics, and Drug Interactions of Nirmatrelvir/Ritonavir.Clinical pharmacokinetics · 2024Review
- Longitudinal study of disease severity and external factors in cognitive failure after COVID-19 among Indonesian population.Scientific reports · 2023Observational
- Favipiravir treatment in non-severe COVID-19: promising results from multicenter propensity score-matched study (FAVICOV).Scientific reports · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
31 authors at 6 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo evaluate whether favipiravir reduces the time to viral clearance as documented by negative RT-PCR results for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 in mild cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) compared to placebo.
methodsIn this randomized, double-blinded, multicentre, and placebo-controlled trial, adults with PCR-confirmed mild COVID-19 were recruited in an outpatient setting at seven medical facilities across Saudi Arabia. Participants were randomized in a 1:1 ratio to receive either favipiravir 1800 mg by mouth twice daily on day 1 followed by 800 mg twice daily (n = 112) or a matching placebo (n = 119) for a total of 5 to 7 days. The primary outcome was the effect of favipiravir on reducing the time to viral clearance (by PCR test) within 15 days of starting the treatment compared to the placebo group. The trial included the following secondary outcomes: symptom resolution, hospitalization, intensive care unit admissions, adverse events, and 28-day mortality.
resultsTwo hundred thirty-one patients were randomized and began the study (median age, 37 years; interquartile range (IQR): 32-44 years; 155 [67%] male), and 112 (48.5%) were assigned to the treatment group and 119 (51.5%) into the placebo group. The data and safety monitoring board recommended stopping enrolment because of futility at the interim analysis. The median time to viral clearance was 10 days (IQR: 6-12 days) in the favipiravir group and 8 days (IQR: 6-12 days) in the placebo group, with a hazard ratio of 0.87 for the favipiravir group (95% CI 0.571-1.326; p = 0.51). The median time to clinical recovery was 7 days (IQR: 4-11 days) in the favipiravir group and 7 days (IQR: 5-10 days) in the placebo group. There was no difference between the two groups in the secondary outcome of hospital admission. There were no drug-related severe adverse events.
conclusionIn this clinical trial, favipiravir therapy in mild COVID-19 patients did not reduce the time to viral clearance within 15 days of starting the treatment.
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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.