Indonesian University Partners With Fabunan Antiviral Injection

A reader sent the following story and I thank him for it. This about the fake Fabunan Antiviral Injection which was being passed off last year as a cure for COVID-19.

https://ugm.ac.id/en/news/20451-ugm-develops-antiviral-drug-for-coronavirus

Everything about that headline is a lie. But let's dig deeper.

Universitas Gadjah Mada built a partnership with PT Philippines Antiviral Indonesia (FAI) to develop a Covid-19 antiviral drug. The development is currently being conducted and still awaiting approval from BPOM and the Ethics Committee for clinical trials. Based on the plan, the distribution target for Covid-19 antiviral will be ready in 2022. The Deputy Chancellor for Cooperation and Alumni Affairs, Prof. Dr. Paripurna Sugarda, conveyed this statement online to journalists on the sidelines of the UGM-Industry Research Forum 2020 activity on Wednesday (2/12).

Paripurna revealed that the drug development cooperation collaborated with FAI. This philanthropic company will provide funding for UGM researchers to develop drugs in handling the Covid-19 pandemic. "This collaboration basically aims to develop anti-inflammatory drugs, but it was also developed for the Covid-19 antiviral as well," he said.

Paripurna maintained that this UGM cooperation with industrial partners aimed not only to produce a Covid-19 diagnostic tool based on the RI-GHA antigen and GeNose that can detect Covid-19 from breath, but UGM will also produce antiviral drugs later. "We are not only producing positive detection kits for Covid but also producing vaccines. We can even produce Covid-19 drugs," he said.

Right off the bat in the second and third paragraph the headline comes unravelled. This University may have patterned with FAI but they have not yer developed an antiviral drug for COVID-19.  They are looking to develop anti-inflammatory drugs as well as a test that can detect COVID-19 by breath. The target for distributing any antiviral drug is set for 2022 which means they would be rushing it into production just like the other COVID-19 vaccines which have been approved in such an uncustomarily short time. The normal time to develop a vaccine is 10 - 15 years.

From the article it is not clear that who exactly UGM has partnered with but it is indeed the Fabunans as seen on the FAI webpage.

https://www.facebook.com/FAIofficialpage/posts/173546591157501

It seems strange that UGM would partner with frauds like the Fabunans because it appears to be a legitimate research university.

Gadjah Mada University is a public research university located in Sleman, Special Region of Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Officially founded on 19 December 1949, Gadjah Mada University is one of the oldest and largest institutions of higher education in the country. It is widely known as the largest and the first state university in the nation. It has been credited as one of the best universities in Indonesia, along with the Bandung Institute of Technology and the University of Indonesia. In the 2021 QS World Universities Ranking, UGM is ranked 1st in Indonesia and 254th in the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gadjah_Mada_University

It's also not clear why the headline is a lie. Why would a University publish a fraudulent headline? No antiviral drug for COVID-19 has been developed by UGM. That is a future endeavor. The breathalyzer test for COVID-19 is interesting but not unique to UGM. However this device known as GeNose has been deployed to train stations and has a 95% accuracy rate.

https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-indonesia-detector-idUSL4N2K938O

Indonesia launched a COVID-19 screening programme at train stations on Wednesday using a breathalyzer it hopes can find positive cases in a country battling one of the worst coronavirus epidemics in Asia. 

The breathalyzer, known as GeNose, was developed by the University of Gadjah Mada (UGM), which says it detects the reaction between the coronavirus and body tissue in the respiratory tract with at least 95% accuracy. 

Subjects are required to blow into a bag and the result is available in just two minutes.

A similar breath test for COVID-19, SpiroNose, developed by a Dutch health technology company, is being rolled out in the Netherlands to speed up its testing process.

GeNose underwent clinical trial at a Yogyakarta hospital in May 2020 and was approved for distribution in December. It differs from the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) swab tests and the rapid tests that extract blood with a prick of the finger. 

“It’s a simple method and easier for me as sometimes, the rapid antigen test hurts slightly,” said Mugi Hartoyo, 59, after taking the test in central Jakarta. 

Indonesia has the biggest coronavirus battle in Southeast Asia, with about 1.1 million infections and over 30,000 deaths, stretching its hospitals. Critics have said its testing, tracing and health protocols have been weak. 

The machine, sold at 68 million Indonesian rupiah ($4,850), is implanted with a memory of positive PCR swab test results, Kuwat Triyana, who heads the innovation team, told Reuters.

“This tool adapts the function of the human nose or of the sniffer dog’s nose, which is to recognise the smell, or in this case to recognise the smell of the breath of a person who is confirmed with COVID, compared to people who are not,” he said. 

Those with positive readings are required to undergo a confirmatory PCR test.

Though it does have shortcomings, it could help detection efforts, said Dicky Budiman, an epidemiologist at Griffith University.

That sounds like a very ingenious invention. It's just too bad that UGM would partner with frauds such as FAI and announce the development of a vaccine when that clearly is not what happened.