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DW.com – Remdesivir Antivirus Called to Have a Significant Impact on Recovery for COVID-19 Patients
COVID-19-positive patients taking remdesivir antiviral recover approximately 30 percent faster than those using placebo, according to the results of a major clinical trial reported by US scientists on Wednesday (04/30). This potential breakthrough sparked global hopes of returning to normal since the crown crisis.
This finding is the first, where there is a drug that has been shown to have a positive effect in the fight against COVID-19, which has claimed more than 220,000 lives worldwide and stopped the world economy.
The US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. USA (NIAID), the agency that oversees clinical trials, said that patients taking medications produced by Gilead Sciences had a 31% faster recovery time than patients using placebo.
“Specifically, the average recovery time for patients receiving remdesivir is 11 days, while for those receiving a placebo it is 15 days,” said the NIAID, according to the AFP news agency.
Anthony Fauci, the scientist who headed NIAID and one of the most important people in the United States government during this crisis, said that “clinical trial data shows that remdesivir has a clear and significant positive impact on time acceleration. of recovery. “
“Although the increase is only 31%, this is a very important proof of concept because there is evidence that a drug can block this virus,” Fauci told reporters at the White House.
The patient’s mortality rate is lower.
The results of clinical trials also showed that the mortality rate of patients receiving remdesivir was lower compared to the group receiving placebo, which was 8% for the remdesivir group and 11.6% for the placebo.
Clinical trials of the drug began on February 21 with 1,063 people in 68 different locations spread across the United States (USA), Europe and Asia. Neither the patients nor the treating physicians know that they are classified into which groups, with the intention of eliminating unconscious bias.
United States President Donald Trump described the news as a “positive event”. It then supports authorizing emergency use of the drug, so that it allows doctors to prescribe it more broadly.
Meanwhile, Daniel O’Day, CEO of Gilead Sciences, a laboratory for remdesivir producers, said the company plans to donate the 1.5 million doses available in its inventory. This amount is sufficient to treat at least 140,000 patients. The company will then sell the drug at an “affordable” price, O’Day told the health statistics site.
Failed in Ebola clinical trials
Remdesivir, which had previously failed an Ebola trial, belongs to a class of drugs that work directly on the virus.
The drug works instead of controlling an abnormal and fatal autoimmune response caused by a virus.
In his statement to journalists, Fauci indicated that the focus of this clinical trial could pave the way for better drugs by adopting the same model.
Although these findings were positively received by scientists, some caution that the drug’s benefits are relatively small.
“This is the first evidence that remdesivir has real benefits, but of course the benefits are not that dramatic,” said Stephen Evans, an expert in medical statistics at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
“These data are promising because we do not yet have proven treatment for COVID-19, but of course this leads to rapid approval of remdesivir,” said Babak Javid, principal investigator at Tsinghua University School of Medicine in Beijing. “However, this also does not mean that remdesivir is a miracle drug,” he added.
gtp / rap (AFP)
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