According to AIIMS Director Randeep Guleria, “We invested a lot in the Covid-19 vaccine but did not focus on any antiviral drug … which is effective against the virus. I think we need to invest more in research in this area “
According to Guleria, such drugs are being used against Covid-19 which are made for some other disease.
“In 18 months, our treatment strategy has evolved because we started with a novel virus that we didn’t really know much about. And so a lot of empirical medicine and repurposed drugs were used. We are using a lot of repurposed drugs for COVID-19 instead of a specific antiviral. And unfortunately, a lot of investment went into the development of the vaccine but we haven’t really invested that much in research of antivirals or a drug that works against the virus. I really think we need to put more effort into research to develop good antiviral drugs; along with vaccines, we should also have good drugs that are effective, which Can be easily administered to patients and be useful in the long run. We do not have any such medicine as of now,” Dr. Guleria said.
