The National Coordinator of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19, Dr Sani Aliyu, has said no medication has been licenced for treating COVID-19 patients in the country.
Dr Aliyu stated this on Wednesday during an appearance on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily show.
The PTF coordinator stated this while debunking reports that some drugs and local herbs are available as cure for coronavirus, insisting that no medication has been confirmed.
He said;
I must make it very clear at the moment, there is no medication that has been confirmed to be effective and licenced for COVID-19 infection, None.
Dr. Aliyu, however, noted that the United States of America had given temporal approval for the use of an anti-viral drug called Remdesivir for a clinical trial in the quest to find a cure for the pandemic.
Read Also: US Approves Remdesivir To Treat Emergency COVID-19 Patients
Remdesivir is an antiviral drug initially developed by Gilead Sciences to treat Ebola but study found out that it boosted recovery in serious COVID-19 patients.
The approval is the latest step in a global push to find effective treatments and a vaccine for the coronavirus, which has left half of humanity under some form of lockdown, affected world economy, and infected more than 3.3 million people.
Similarly, the Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, shared his view last week, stressing that there was no cure yet for the disease but research was ongoing.
Dr Ehanire had during one of the PTF briefings said;
Yes, chloroquine has been touted as the drug that might be quite useful in dealing with COVID-19, but nothing has been confirmed yet. In Nigeria, doctors are also still trying to figure out how to treat patients. Clinical trials and other processes are ongoing to validate various therapeutics for COVID-19 treatment.
As at May 5th, Nigeria has confirmed 2,950 coronavirus cases, 481 discharged patients and 98 causalities.
