Covid-19: Russians spend billions on useless medicines

The authorities have imposed fines for misleading advertising. Dr Boris Brill: these are the 'medicines of obscurantism'. Despite Omicron, the Duma will not approve a green pas for workers and public places: Putin does not want to lose his no-vax voters.

Moscow (AsiaNews) - In 2021 the citizens of the Russian Federation spent over 64 billion roubles (about 800 million euros) on anti-coronavirus medicines. Most of them are without any scientific validation the Rbk news agency reports pointing to data from the "Honest Brand" (Čestnyj Znak) commercial product control system.

The Russians invested a quarter of this sum (16.8 billion roubles) in the purchase of umifenovir, the best-known brand of which is Arbidol. The second most popular was the immuno-isolator interferon-alpha-2b, for which the Russians spent 7.2 billion roubles. The efficacy of both drugs has not been confirmed by the scientific community; other countries rarely use either drug to combat Covid-19 infection.

Then there is the Japanese-made favipiravirdi (2.9 billion roubles spent), which appeared in 2002 to combat influenza, but with no confirmed effectiveness against the virus, which is actually dangerous for embryonic development and toxic in pregnancies. One billion was spent on deksametazon, and 800 million on methylprednizolon. In all, 144 million medicinal packages recommended to treat Covid were sold in Russia.

In January 2020, the company Otisifarm, which manufactures Arbidol, released an advertisement claiming that the preparation is very effective against the coronavirus. The advert caused sales of the drug to increase exponentially across Russia. This was in spite of the fact that the National Anti-Monopoly Agency declared that the Arbidol advertisement was misleading, since the instructions for the drug did not mention its effectiveness against the coronavirus, and imposed a fine of 200,000 roubles.

Other internationally popular medicines are often recommended in Russia against the coronavirus. These include lopinavir, also known as Ritonavir. It is an antiretroviral drug belonging to the protease inhibitor class, used against HIV infection, but absolutely useless against Covid-19, as published by the British clinical research centre Recovery.

Israeli doctor and doctor of demonstration medicine Boris Brill, who also works a lot with Russia, told Ngs24.ru that many of these recommended preparations are the 'medicines of obscurantism', which in Russia can be bought without a prescription and even without indicating the name of the doctor who recommended them, but only on the recommendation of friends.

"In Russia today you can find everything in pharmacies and from family doctors, from antibiotics without leucocytes to the most imaginative anti-virus remedies," says Brill. He explains that plasma transfusions are also practised; the method is not used anywhere in the world, while patients who are treated at home in other countries are hospitalised. "In reality,' he explains, 'there are no special medicines against the coronavirus, even though research is being carried out all over the world.

Meanwhile, in the face of the spread of the Omicron variant in Russia and a new wave of viral infections, the State Duma (lower house of parliament) has blocked discussion on the approval of the mandatory 'Qr-Code' (Green Pass) for workers and public places. The stop was imposed directly by the Kremlin, which does not want to lose the consensus of the mass of the no-vax and no-pass population, which makes up the bulk of President Vladimir Putin's supporters.