The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced late Friday that it was approving the use of the drug remedesivir for all patients hospitalized with coronavirus.
The agency said in a press release that it would extend the authorization of emergency use of the drug, “to allow its use in the treatment of all hospitalized adult and pediatric patients with suspected or laboratory-confirmed COVID-19, regardless of the severity of the disease.”
“The FDA continues to make safe and potentially helpful treatments available for Covid-19 as soon as possible to help patients,” said FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn. “The data are encouraging to support today’s move. The data show that this treatment is likely to help hospitalized patients who are suffering from the effects of this devastating virus.
He added: “We are working with drug developers to conduct randomized clinical trials to further study the safety and efficacy of numerous potential therapies for COVID-19.”
The FDA said in its release that it has determined that it is “reasonable to believe” that remedesivir may be effective in treating suspected or confirmed coronavirus cases in hospitalized adults and children.
Statistics from the New England Journal of Medicine Medicine show that rimadesivir is not a cure for coronavirus and that it does not treat patients alone who are experiencing severe symptoms of COVID-19, however, helped to recover faster than patients who took the drug. Was not.
The Trump administration has pushed the drug forward by purchasing the entire global supply of antiviral drugs as soon as possible.
“Without science, without data, without evidence, it seems like an example of belief,” said Eric Topol, vice president of Scripps Research in La Jolla, California, and national expert on the use of data in medical research. USA Today.
The FDA first approved the use of rimadesivir for hospitalized patients who needed oxygen but were not sick for the need for ventilation.
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