According to the latest study published in "The Journal of Infection", oral arbidol and lopinavir/ritonavir in the combination group considerably promoted negative Coronavirus rate of coronavirus test at 7th and 14th day compared to LPV/R only in the monotherapy group.

Coronavirus infection appeared in December 2019 in Wuhan city of China has now spread all over the world. Lisi Deng and colleagues conducted this study to compare the effects of arbidol and LPV/R combination with that of LPV/R monotherapy in patients infected with COVID-19.

The retrospective study incorporated individuals of age > 18 years with confirmed COVID 19, diagnosed between Jan 17, 2020, and Feb 13, 2020, and had not undergone any invasive ventilation. In the combination group, the patients were administered oral arbidol and LPV/R while LPV/R was given to the patients in the monotherapy group for 5-21 days. The primary outcomes were defined as the negative conversion rate of Coronavirus from the date of COVID-19 diagnosis (day7, day14), and assessed whether the pneumonia was progressing or improving by chest CT (day7).

The outcomes in 16 patients in the combination group and 17 patients in the monotherapy group were evaluated. Both the groups showed similar baseline clinical, laboratory and CT features. After seven days, the 12 out of the 16 patients in the combination group did not found positive for SARS-CoV-2 as compared to only 6 out of 17 in the monotherapy group. After 14 days, SARS-CoV-2 could not be detected in 15 of the 16 patients in the combination group and 9 of the 17 patients in the monotherapy group. There was a significant improvement in chest scans after 7 days in the 11 of 16 patients of the combination group compared to the 5 of the 17 patients of the monotherapy group.