JAKARTA - The Ministry of Health (Kemenkes) stated that the government no longer uses five types of drugs that were previously used to treat COVID-19 patients.
The five drugs are ivermectin, chloroquine, oseltamivir, convalescent plasma, and azithromycin.
"These five types of drugs are no longer used," said the Ministry of Health's Director of Direct Infectious Disease Prevention and Control, Siti Nadia Tarmizi via text message, Sunday, February 6.
Thus, Nadia revealed that currently only two types of drugs are used for COVID-19 patients, namely fapiviravir and molnupiravir. Both types of drugs have received an emergency use permit from BPOM.
"Favipiravir or molnupiravir/paxlovid for patients (COVID-19) with mild symptoms. If there are no symptoms, only vitamins are given," said Nadia.
The head of the Covid-19 Task Force for the Indonesian Doctors Association (IDI) Zubairi Djoerban revealed five types of drugs that had been used to treat COVID-19 patients but were now declared no longer useful.
"Drugs that were previously used for COVID-19 and have now proven to be useless, have even caused serious side effects in some cases: ivermectin, chloroquine, oseltamivir, convalescent plasma, azithromycin," said Zubairi.
Last year, a number of officials promoted the use of ivermectin for COVID-19 patients. This drug has also been circulating in the market. However, Zubairi revealed that currently Ivermectin is not approved for use by the United States Food and Drug Administration.
"Ivermectin is not approved by the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the European Union drug regulator. There are many reports of patients requiring medical attention, including hospitalization, after taking Ivermectin," he said.
Meanwhile, for chloroquine, Zubairi admitted that this drug has been used by hundreds of thousands of people in the world. However, it has been proven to be dangerous for the heart. There are no antivirus benefits. So, chloroquine should not be used anymore.
On oseltamivir, Zuairi said this drug is actually intended to treat flu. There is no scientific evidence that oseltamivir is a COVID-19 drug. In fact, the WHO declared oseltamivir useless for the treatment of the corona virus.
Then, convalescent plasma which is a plasma donor from someone who has recovered from COVID-19. Zubairi said that convalescent plasma is useless, expensive, and the process is very time consuming.
"It is not recommended by WHO except in the context of randomized controlled trials," he said.
Lastly, azithromycin. Zubairi said, this drug is not useful as a COVID-19 therapy, both on a mild and moderate scale. Unless, there are findings of bacteria other than the corona virus in the body. "If only COVID-19, then this drug is not needed," he added.
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