Recent reports have suggested a newly developed anti-malarial drug called Pyramax® with the ingredients of pyronaridine/artesunate, that people can use, which wouldn’t require them to receive the COVID vaccine (so basically like an alternative of the vaccine that makes the individual immune to the virus).

The company of Pyramax®, Shinpoong Pharmaceutical, obtained FDA Philippines approval for their phase-2/3 trial to develop the drug even more to be able to prescribe and use it on patients as COVID-19 medicine.

The trial will observe the drug’s effectiveness and safety among 402 patients with COVID symptoms ranging from various degrees(mild, moderate and severe COVID symptoms). Six hospitals, including the Philippine General Hospital, will run the tests.

As this Pyramax® drug trial is gaining global attention, the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine of the U.K. will conduct the phase-3 study of Pyramax® on COVID-19 treatment on Friday.

According to clinicaltrials.gov(US trials site), other phase-3 studies in Kenya and Burkina Faso will compare the effects of Pyramax® with another antimalarial drug Coartem® (with ingredients ofartemether/lumefantrine) among 142 patients diagnosed with both COVID-19 and malaria.

Although Professor Sanjeev Krishna at Centre for Diagnostics and Antimicrobial Resistance at the St George’s University of London stated in his report that it was too early to deduce that the Pyramax® is an efficient drug, many of the lab trial results do showcase high likelihood of successful treatment.

The drug’s usage instructions are as follows:

“Pyramax is taken once a day for three days. The daily dose depends on the patient’s weight, and for tablets it ranges from one tablet a day for patients weighing between 20 and 24 kg to four tablets a day for patients over 65 kg. ” (Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) Assessed the Medicine to Reach Its Opinion on the Medicine and Its Recommendations on the Conditions of Use for What Is Pyramax? What Is Pyramax Used For?)

(As it is a tablet, I am assuming it is a ingestive drug)

Works Cited: Chan-hyuk, Kim. “Shinpoong Actively Testing Covid-19 Treatment Worldwide.” KBR, 8 Jan. 2021, http://www.koreabiomed.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=10125. Accessed 8 Feb. 2021.

Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) Assessed the Medicine to Reach Its Opinion on the Medicine and Its Recommendations on the Conditions of Use for What Is Pyramax? What Is Pyramax Used For? .

-Joanna Kim, Feb. 09. 2020. 12:37 AM KST

Additional Personal Thought: I was intrigued by this drug recently because my friend was getting COVID tested and he had bought this drug while getting the COVID test, and had shared a photo of it to me, asking if I knew about this new medicine. But it really did catch my attention that this could serve as a possible alternative to COVID medication!

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