Abstract
Background The spread of COVID-19 continues, the mutation of SARS-COV-2
is still difficult to control, and the need for antiviral drugs to treat
COVID-19 remains urgent. The use of arbidol in the treatment of COVID-19
is limited and controversial. Methods To clarify the efficacy of arbidol
on COVID-19, we collected 25 cases and 178 related studies. We analyzed
the treatment information of arbidol based on the obtained cases,
expanded the scope of the study, and collected current studies on the
treatment of COVID-19 in various databases for in-depth analysis.
Results History analysis showed that arbidol was effective (76% cure
rate) compared with other drugs. However, compared with other antiviral
drugs or standard therapy, the arbidol group had no significant
advantage in reducing the time to negative virus transformation, length
of hospital stays, or improvement in CT (MD=0.22, 95%CI -0.29-0.73; MD
= 0.61, 95% CI 1.46 to 2.67; RR=1.15, 95%CI 0.88-1.50); Analysis of
adverse events showed no significant difference between the arbidol
group and the other groups (RR=0.82, 95%CI 0.25-2.71). Conclusion Our
study showed that arbidol had no significant effect on COVID-19, but
showed a slight advantage in CT improvement and adverse events. Our
study objectively evaluated the efficacy of arbidol in the treatment of
COVID-19 and provided some guidance for arbidol in the treatment of
COVID-19.