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The antiviral drug remdesivir was originally developed for the treatment of Ebola, but has been mentioned in recent months as an alternative to the covid-19 treatment method. Reliable results on the drug’s effects have been lacking for a long time, which, however, did not prevent strong movements for the market value of the manufacturer Gilead Sciences.
This week, the first conclusions of clinical trials presenting patients treated with remdesivir are presented. The results are mixed and the studies contain uncertainties. However, that did not stop the US Food and Drug Administration. USA Grant an emergency license on Friday, which means that remdesivir can be used in the nation’s healthcare to treat patients with covid-19, reports CNBC.
It was President Donald Trump who announced that Remdesivir was approved for use during a press conference with Gilead Sciences CEO Daniel O’Day. The fact that an emergency license has been granted means that the drug has not been subjected to the rigorous controls normally carried out by the FDA. However, the authority states that the possible effects outweigh the known and potential risks when using the drug.
The message about the drug. It comes two days after the US Health Authority. USA NIH will present preliminary results from a study involving a total of 1,063 patients. The study, which has not yet been reviewed or published in a scientific journal, showed that remdesivir can speed recovery for patients who are sick with covid-19, the NIH said.
The median recovery time in the group of patients receiving remdesivir was eleven days, according to the NIH results. It was four days faster than the median time for patients in the control group who did not receive the medication. The study defined recovery as the person who could be discharged from the hospital or return to normal life.
– If your data remains, it is positive. But covid-19 is a disease with many different faces. Provides varied course of the disease. You need to know more about the details of the American study. There are still ambiguities, says Anders Sönnerborg, a professor of clinical virology at the Karolinska Institute, who directs Swedish research in the field.
Uncertainty about belt design The effects are amplified at the same time by the results of a Chinese study, published in The Lancet on Wednesday. It showed that there is no support for remdesivir to accelerate the recovery of seriously ill patients. The researchers had studied 237 patients in hospitals in Wuhan, where the drug’s effects were compared to placebo.
However, the researchers admit that there were problems with the study, as they had trouble recruiting new patients for the study when the Wuhan epidemic stopped. Therefore, the study also had to be terminated prematurely. The researchers write that it was therefore not enough to investigate whether treatment with remedies earlier in the course of the disease could have a better effect.
These problems mean that even the study results must be interpreted with caution, says Anders Sönnerborg.
– We must be very careful when drawing conclusions, except that it seems that it did not produce more side effects than expected. However, it should have been a dramatic effect if it had still appeared.
If it turns out that remdesivir it can contribute to a reduced mortality rate or at least a shorter duration of care, so the medicine will be valuable. But, according to Anders Sönnerborg, no magic bullet will dramatically improve prospects for the covid-19 treatment.
No, it is not. You can’t expect that either. It would have been very surprising if it had been a magic bullet. But all progress is good in the situation we find ourselves in, he says.
Both in Sweden and internationally, several studies are currently underway investigating the possible effects of the strap divider for covid-19. Earlier this year, the Swedish Medicines Agency granted a reserve license for the medicine.
