The top-line results of a clinical trial in Brazil indicate that a treatment for COVID-19 devised by Kintor Pharmaceutical Ltd of China reduces by 92 percent the death rate among hospital patients suffering from the disease, Kintor says.

Among the patients that volunteered to be treated, just 3.7 percent  died, and the median stay in hospital was five days, in contrast to the median stay of two weeks among untreated patients, the Hong Kong-listed company announced in writing last week.

The announcement quotes Kintor Chairman Tong Youzhi as saying the trial was conducted in the northwestern Brazilian state of Amazonas, where most COVID-19 cases are due to a new variant of the virus that kills a higher proportion of the people that catch it than the original virus.

Mr Tong describes the results of the trial as positive, and his company expects its remedy, which uses a male hormone blocker, proxalutamide, to play an big part in the global effort to counter COVID-19, the Kintor announcement  says.