"The Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation issued a permission to produce the Triazavirin antiviral drug developed in the Urals," said Oleg Chupakhin, Chief Researcher at the Institute of Organic Synthesis, the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and head of the drug development team.

"The drug is non-toxic. Its clinical trials found no side effects. This allowed the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation to permit its production," said he at a Monday press conference at the Yekaterinburg Interfax-Ural agency's press center.

According to O. Chupakhin, Triazavirin affects a virus's causative agent itself; such drugs are not numerous.

Some drugs urge the immune system to make the body fight against a disease on its own, while others only eliminate or reduce symptoms like a headache or a runny nose. However, the pathogen remains in the body. Etiotropic drugs, including Triazavirin, eliminate symptoms by killing the causative agent," explained the Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Triazavirin is effective against all influenza pathogens, including bird and swine flu. And although it is positioned as an anti-influenza remedy, it has a wider range of antiviral effects.

"That is, it is effective, for example, with tick-borne encephalitis, with the so-called Crimean hemorrhagic fever and West Nile fever. This allows us to suggest that the medicine can be effective with Ebola too," stressed O. Chupakhin.

He also added that, as for now, Ural researchers have no reports or documents proving the Triazavirin's efficacy with Ebola.