Surabaya’s Airlangga University (Unair), the Indonesian Army, and the State Intelligence Agency (BIN) say they have developed an effective antiviral drug to treat COVID-19 and are pushing to expedite its Drug and Food Monitoring Agency (BPOM) approval.
Unair said it has completed advanced clinical trials of the drug, which combines three existing combinations of drugs Lopinavir-Ritonavir and Azithromycin, Lopinavir-Ritonavir and Doxycycline, and Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromyci. It is claimed that the drug is able to eliminate SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, with an efficiency rate of up to 98 percent in patients of the disease.
The Indonesian Army, which, along with BIN, submitted the drug to BPOM for approval, says all of the proper clinical steps for the development and clinical trials of the drug was observed.
“I am officially asking the head of BPOM for their support in fast-tracking the approval process,” Army General Andika Perkasa said today.
Experts in the country are skeptical of the claims about the drug, especially considering that its announcement came out of nowhere and that researchers have not published the clinical study for the drug.
“Surely public transparency is necessary. For that, Unair, with BIN and the Army, surely will not hesitate to explain how they carried out ethical considerations,” COVID-19 task force spokesman Wiku Adisasmito said yesterday.
In an op-ed for JawaPos published on Monday, Unair Dean Mohammad Nasih addressed the skepticism towards the drug by saying, “…slowing down and hindering [the approval of the drug] for ethical reasons, as well as bureaucratic or administrative, is evidence that there’s a conspiracy at play,” implying the idea that, if the drug doesn’t receive approval, then the COVID-19 pandemic could have been engineered by those in power.
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