Have you heard of ZIVERDO?

By Modesto P. Sa-onoy

 

Last December 26, Covexit, a Belgium-based internet advocate of treatment for the corona virus, came out with a blog that is surprising in its presentation but not much on its content. ZIVERDO is a new word that it is not yet among the terms recognized by Google. There is no mention of its author which means it can be attributed to Covexit which also comes out in French.

According to this blog “If you watch the news about COVID-19, you will have certainly heard about drugs such as Remdesivir and REGEN-CoV2, two drugs that were administered to President Trump when he got the disease. But what about ZIVERDO? You probably never heard about it! And chances are that, if you don’t read this blog, or pay attention to COVID-19 news on Twitter and some other social media, you would never hear about it.”

Indeed we never heard of the word but the blog explained it in a rather interesting way. It said “a reason (we never heard of it) may simply that it’s a very, very cheap therapy for COVID-19. The drugs we hear about tend to be very pricey. Forbes looked at the price of REGEN-CoV2 and came with this comparison:

“To put things in perspective, that’s potentially over 220 to 950 pieces of avocado toast, depending on whether goat cheese is involved and whether you make your own avocado toast. Not sure how they came up with this comparison, but they also gave a cost estimate at ‘somewhere between $1,500 and $6,500 per treatment.’”

No wonder people longed to have the vaccines being trumpeted by the pharmaceuticals. Sadly, the price of REGEN-CoV2 is simply beyond the capability of the victims.

However, the Covexit blog said that “in the US, the federal government is subsidizing the drug, so it’s offered free of charge to patients, although in some cases, some fees are applicable. To this date, some 55,000 doses of Casirivimab/Imdevimab, the commercial name of the drug, have been delivered.

“As for Remdesivir, the price is $3120 per patient for a typical treatment course, for those with private insurance. This does not include the hospitalization costs. While Remdesivir is known to have significant toxicity and has been found to be ineffective by the international SOLIDARITY trial, leading to the World Health Organization to recommend against its use, it’s still widely used in US hospitals and officially recommended by the National Institutes of Health.”

I never heard anybody in the Philippines recommending or considering this drug, not so much for the price that many Filipino millionaires can afford but when it was reported to have failed in the case of President Trump they just shunned the drug.

“Interim analysis of data for 275 patients, of a clinical trial regarding REGN-COV2, was published on December 17 in the New England Journal of Medicine and found that the drug ‘reduced viral load, with a greater effect in patients whose immune response had not yet been initiated or who had a high viral load at baseline. So this research shows an interesting signal, but let’s see how this evolves. The purpose of this article is not to look into the details of the effectiveness of this therapy.”

Indeed, the purpose of the blog is to present its own approach or treatment for the dreaded corona-virus.

So, what about the ZIVERDO Therapy, or what is it? The author answers the most often asked question: how much does it cost? Can we afford it? Where can we buy? Is it available locally? Do we need to be hospitalized? Do we need a doctor for its treatment? Will the government authorize its use? How does it differ with the other forms of treatment, especially in relation to the vaccine?

Regarding its cost and availability, Covexit said “it can be purchased online, in India, for the whopping total amount of US$2.00.

“Yes you read it well: retail price is below what you would tip for your coffee at Starbucks. I am not talking here about the price of your latté, which is immensely more expensive than that of the potentially life-saving ZIVERDO Therapy.”

Is ZIVERDO for real? We’ll continue tomorrow.