Favipiravir-induced fever in coronavirus disease 2019: A report of two cases

Highlights • Favipiravir is undergoing clinical trials for treating COVID-19. • Drug fever is difficult to diagnose in patients with febrile illnesses. • We report 2 cases of favipiravir-induced drug fever in patients with COVID-19.
Favipiravir, an antiviral agent, is undergoing clinical trials for treating novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). We report two cases of COVID-19 with favipiravir-induced fever. In both cases, pyrexia was observed following administration of favipiravir despite symptoms of COVID-19 improving. No other cause for the fever was evident after careful physical examination and laboratory investigation. Once favipiravir was discontinued, the fever subsided in both patients. To our knowledge, this is the first report of favipiravir-induced fever.