Xu Y, Li M, Zhou L, et al. - Despite the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic all over the world resulting in high mortality, no recommendation concerning specific antiviral treatment has been made.

• Researchers conducted a retrospective descriptive study involving 19 consecutive critically ill patients.

• The patients were administered ribavirin at 0.15g q8h orally upon ICU admission for 7 to 21 days.

• No mortality was recorded for any of the 19 critically ill COVID-19 patients (14 males and 5 females, median age 56 yr) through to the 28th day of observations; 6 patients (31.58%) were discharged from the ICU.

• These patients showed good tolerability towards ribavirin.

• Through increasing the virus clearance, ribavirin may benefit COVID-19 patients.