MILAN (Reuters) – Italy’s medicines company AIFA warned on Friday against the misuse of an unlicensed antiviral drug as a COVID-19 remedy, contacting it a possible danger to people’s health.
Regulators stated the Ministry of Overall health had alerted them of a significant range of requests to import Parvulan, an antiviral drug utilized as treatment for Herpes Zoster, which is not authorised in Italy but lawfully registered and marketed in Brazil.
AIFA extra that requests from prospects in Italy showed that Parvulan is getting proposed off-label – for works by using unique from its original objective – as a treatment for the prevention of COVID-19, in option to licensed vaccines.
“The use of the drug Parvulan in the prophylaxis of Sars-COV-2 an infection is not supported by the slightest proof, under the profile of efficacy and protection”, the agency explained in a assertion, incorporating its scientific committee had not even authorised it in a medical trial.
“The achievable use of the drug as a substitute for authorised vaccines thus represents a possible threat to human wellbeing”, AIFA said.
The danger would not only be due to the absence of basic safety in its use but also to the unjustified feeling of protection people would have from it, provided the absence of documented efficacy, the regulator additional in its assertion.
(Reporting by Emilio Parodi, modifying by)
