Hungary made an unorthodox decision to avoid hospital overload

Hungary will use favipiravir, a Japanese drug made to treat diseases caused by the flu, in outpatient care, according to an announcement on Friday by the operative body. Up until now, only patients treated in hospitals received it, but only when the antiviral serum could no longer have a perceptible effect. The medicine can help avoid the development of serious symptoms in the early stages of the coronavirus disease.

According to portfolio.hu, they wrote last December during the second wave of the coronavirus epidemic that favipiravir should be used in the care of those COVID-19 patients whose condition is not critical, so they are not yet treated in a hospital but show symptoms of the illness. That is because favipiravir is an

antiviral medicine that hinders the multiplication of the virus in the body.

Interestingly, drugs containing favipiravir could not be used up until now in Hungary in outpatient care. Therefore, GPs could not prescribe it to curb the effects of the infection. That is why there was no medicine against the virus that could be bought in the pharmacies. As a result, patients had to be taken to the hospitals if their condition got worse. In the hospital,

they could get both favipiravir and remdesivir.

Doctors gave the former to patients in a non-critical condition, while they prescribed the latter for people in a critical condition.