OBJECTIVES: In Ukraine, about 10 million people suffer from acute respiratory viral infections (ARVI) annually, which account for 25% of the country's total incidence. Complex treatment of ARVI includes antiviral drugs (ADs). The purpose of the study is to calculate and analyze the volumes of ADs consumption in the pharmaceutical market of Ukraine for 2013-2017.

METHODS: ADs consumption was assessed using the ATC/DDD methodology for DDDs/1000/day according to the retail sales of the information system for the market research of Ukraine "Pharmstandard" of Morion.

RESULTS: The analysis of the results showed that the consumption leader in 2013-2017 was inosine pranobex (J05AX5). Secondly place is other antiviral drugs (J05A X20), third and fourth places are taken by preparations of rimantadine (J05AС02) and umifenovir (J05AX13), then oseltamivir and in the latter place zanamivir (J05AH01). During the study period, the total consumption of ADs increased and was in units of DDDs/1000/day, respectively, 0.64 (2013); 0.56 (2014); 0.53 (2015); 0.92 (2016); 0.85 (2017). Given the significant prevalence of ARVI in the Ukrainian population, the volume of patients requiring antiviral drugs was calculated and the actual volume of patients who underwent one course of ADs treatment. The analysis showed that a very small part of the population (from 0.60% to 0.85%) annually receives one 10-day course of treatment with antiviral drugs. The annual volume of patients with ARVI requiring the use of ADs is from 21.95% to 23.58% of the population.

CONCLUSIONS: The use of antiviral drugs for the treatment of patients with acute respiratory infections is very small in Ukraine, which may be due to the high cost of treatment, insufficiently proven clinical effectiveness and low frequency of medical prescriptions of these drugs.