The Ministry of Health, through the Secretary of State Andrei Baciu, talks about the black market of antivirals, i.e. those drugs that would be used in other countries to treat COVID-19, but which are not used in Romania either because they are not authorized or because they are not recommended by experts.
The Ministry of Health says that if there will be scientific evidence regarding the effectiveness of these drugs, then they will be taken into account by experts for analysis in order to recommend them, but for now there is no such scientific evidence.
"Here we have to discuss two ideas. First of all, all the therapies, all the molecules that the Infectious Disease Commission recommends for the treatment of patients with COVID-19, they are mentioned in this therapeutic protocol.
You are probably referring to an antiviral that is not part of the recommendations of the Commission of Infectious Diseases, which is certainly used, but does not exist in Romania, from the experts, from the doctors, from those who define the treatment for COVID-19 patients, there is no firm recommendation for use.
If there had been scientific evidence in this sense, they would have been taken into account, we would have found a formula by which this medicine would be brought legally to Romania and used as it should, professionally, following a consultation, as following a medical prescription.
But this is not currently functional because there is no scientific evidence to scientifically recommend the use of that antiviral and then the second idea is to make a plea to everyone who unfortunately contracts SARS -CoV-2, let's have a medical consultation, either with the family doctor or a hospital consultation.
Also related to antivirals, there is the possibility to release Favipiravir, for which there are sufficient stocks, over 25.000 boxes in hospitals, and this drug is released for the entire therapeutic regimen, at home, following an initial consultation carried out by a doctor infectious diseases, hospital consultation.
So we have the treatment for both mild and medium forms. The idea is to show up at the hospital where we also benefit from a set of initial analyses, to know how we are doing and we are also prescribed a correct treatment for the state of health and for the comorbidities of each individual."
