Biopharma pharmaceutical company (Kyiv) urges citizens who came through coronavirus (COVID-19) to become plasma donors to develop a medicine against this disease, which the company is launching. The company told Interfax-Ukraine that hyperimmune immunoglobulin may be effective for specific treatment of COVID-19.
The development of the medicine is carried out under Biopharma’s participation in the work of the International alliance of companies specializing in the production of blood plasma medicines, which also includes Takeda and CSL, Octapharma, Biotest, BPL, LFB, Sanquin, GreenCros, ADMA Biologics.
“Our plasma centers in Sumy, Cherkasy, Dnipro, Kharkiv began plasma blank. All the facilities of our plant in Bila Tserkva, all the forces of our team are directed to the development of medicines. I am sure that effective treatment of COVID-19 will appear,” co-owner of the company Kostiantyn Yefymenko wrote on Facebook.
In turn, businessman Vasyl Khmelnytsky, a co-owner of Biopharma as well, said that the development of an effective medicine against COVID-19 requires the support of people around the world who are ready to donate their plasma after coming through the disease.
“We urge those who have recovered to contribute to the fight against the pandemic and, if their health allows, to become a donor,” he wrote on Facebook.
The company said that Biopharma urged all survivors who wish to become blood plasma donors to contact the company’s hotline. Donors will be transported to their plasma centers, where blood plasma can be donated, and back, and they will get compensation for donation.
The company said that it is ready to register and transfer donors from any settlements.
In addition, Biopharma said that one more direction of the fight against coronavirus infection is the clinical study that have begun to evaluate the effectiveness of Bioven medicine manufactured by Biopharma Plazma LLC in the complex treatment of patients with pneumonia caused by COVID-19 and SARS- CoV-2 coronavirus infection.
At least 46 laboratories, including private ones, are diagnosing COVID-19, the Public Health Center said on Facebook on Tuesday.
According to the report, as of April 28, some 98,719 samples were examined by PCR (polymerase chain reaction) in Ukraine.
The Public Health Center notes that persons with suspected coronavirus who had contact with a patient with confirmed COVID-19, patients with pneumonia, health workers (every five days) and patients who recovered (to withdraw a diagnosis) should be tested.
Five Ukrainian pharmaceutical companies are ready to produce medicines that have been proved to be effective in combating the symptoms of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), Head of the parliamentary committee for health of the nation and medical insurance Mykhailo Radutsky has said.
“Now all legal grounds are being made for Ukrainian pharmaceutical manufacturers to start producing medicines that are used in other countries, but there is great shortage and high cost of such medicines. Today, this is a problem not only in Ukraine,” Radutsky said on the Ukraine 24 television channel on Thursday.
The MP said that there are already pharmaceutical companies capable of producing such medicines, for these companies the Health Ministry is preparing legal grounds for the production of such medicines.
“In Ukraine, five plants have already agreed to produce these medicines, but before that they need legal support. Now, the Verkhovna Rada along with the Cabinet of Ministers is preparing resolutions and legislative acts to allow these medicines production,” the head of the parliamentary committee said.
Domestic pharmaceutical manufacturers have proposed creating a coordination group under the president of Ukraine with the participation of central executive authorities, industry associations and drug manufacturers to quickly resolve the issues of providing medicines during the spread of coronavirus infection.
Pharmaceutical companies that are members of the Manufacturers of Medications of Ukraine Association said this at a press conference at the Interfax-Ukraine agency.
According to association president Petro Bahriy, the working group, in particular, could quickly resolve the problems associated with the increased demand for certain groups of drugs, a shortage of a number of active pharmaceutical ingredients, interruptions in the logistics of medicines, as well as the issues of patent law.
“Today, the enterprises involved in the production of active pharmaceutical ingredients have been stopped, there are problems with the supply of substances, packaging materials, problems with the logistics of medicines, so today it would be very good to form a headquarters and plan our work in the government and the president’s office in such a way as to help domestic manufacturers cope with these challenges and provide the population of Ukraine with medicines,” he said.
The chairperson of the board of PJSC Indar, Liubov Vyshnevska, in turn, noted that the pharmaceutical companies faced a number of problems, including quotas for alcohol without excise taxes.
“Quotas, not even during the epidemic, but in ordinary life, are the Stone Age. Pharmaceutical manufacturers with production licenses should get enough alcohol,” she said.
Some 669 cases of acute respiratory disease COVID-19 caused by SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus were confirmed in Ukraine as of 10:00 on Wednesday, April 1, with 17 patients died and 10 recovered. “According to the results of studies of the virological reference laboratory of the Public Health Centre of Ukraine and regional laboratory centers, a total of 669 cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed. In total, 17 deaths from COVID-19 were recorded in Ukraine. A total of 10 people have recovered – a repeated laboratory study did not reveal the virus in the body,” the Center for Public Health reported on Facebook on Wednesday morning.
A clearly defined procedure for the mandatory hospitalization of citizens who are diagnosed with coronavirus (COVID-19) or are suspected of carrying the virus will prevent possible abuse that may be caused by a restriction of patients’ rights, lawyers interviewed by Interfax-Ukraine have said.
“A clear fixed procedure for involuntary hospitalization, responsibility for violation of the rights of sick people will prevent the abuse that may occur during involuntary hospitalization,” Managing Partner of the Revealing Information Law Firm Oleksandr Keer said.
According to him, the procedure for hospitalization of patients by ambulance teams in medical institutions, approved by order of the Health Ministry No. 370 dated June 1, 2009, provides for the patient’s mandatory consent to hospitalization. At the same time, the law on ensuring sanitary and epidemic well-being of the population establishes that persons with especially dangerous infectious diseases, in case of refusal to be hospitalized, are subject to compulsory inpatient treatment, and carriers of the causative agents of such diseases and persons who have contact with such patients are obliged to be under medical supervision and quarantine in the prescribed manner.
Keyer emphasized that COVID-19 was included in the list of such diseases by order of the Health Ministry dated February 25, 2020.
Meanwhile, the law on the protection of the population from infectious diseases (adopted in 2000) provides that the central executive body, which ensures the formation of state policy in the field of health (Health Ministry), establishes the procedure for hospitalization, treatment and medical monitoring of patients with infectious diseases, contacts and bacterium carriers, as well as the conditions for their stay in relevant healthcare and scientific institutions.
“At present, there is no normative legal act that would determine the procedure for hospitalization, treatment, medical supervision of patients with infectious diseases, except for patients with tuberculosis,” the lawyer said.
Obligatory medical examination and hospitalization of patients with COVID-19 can be carried out on the basis of a corresponding statement of a representative of a medical institution by court decision. However, according to Keyer, the procedure for considering this category of cases will need to be provided for in Ukraine’s Civil Procedure Code to ensure rights, freedoms and interests of sick people.
