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Remdesivir shortens the amount of recovery time from COVID-19 and lowers the risk of death, final results of a study from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) show.
The researchers found that the antiviral drug reduced the recovery time of hospitalized coronavirus patients by at least five days.
In addition, the drug was shown to reduce the risk of mortality from the virus by up to 30 percent.
Manufactured by California-based Gilead Sciences Inc, remdesivir is the only drug Approved for emergency use in the US to treat critically ill coronavirus patients.
The team, from the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), says the findings not only show how remdesivir can help improve conditions for patients, but also how it can prevent them from developing serious complications.
The researchers compared hospitalized coronavirus patients who received the antiviral drug remdesivir (pictured) with those who received a placebo.
Patients who received the drug recovered in an average of 10 days compared to 15 days for those who received a placebo (above)
“The moral is that this is the first step,” corresponding author Dr. John Beigel, associate director of clinical research, NIAID Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, told DailyMail.com.
“This is a significant improvement over no treatment. So this is a very important finding, it shows that we can treat this, but the work is not done.” This is just the first step. ‘
Remdesivir was developed by Gilead Sciences to treat Ebola, the deadly hemorrhagic fever that emerged in West Africa in 2014.
That It works by blocking an enzyme that helps the coronavirus make copies of itself and, in turn, spread throughout the body.
In cell and animal models, studies showed that the drug blocked the activity of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome), which are cousins of the new virus.
Beigel explained that preventing the virus from replicating helps the patient to “get ahead” and fight the infection because it is not “so rampant.”
For the final results, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the NIAID recruited 1,062 coronavirus patients from North America, Europe and Asia.
A total of 541 patients were assigned to a 29-day cycle of remdesivir and the remaining 521 patients received a placebo.
The NIAID found that patients taking the drug had a 50 percent shorter recovery time than those taking a placebo.
Patients in the remdesivir group recovered with a median of 10 days compared to 15 days for those who received placebo.
It also reduced the length of hospital stay with a median of 12 days for those taking the drug compared to 17 days for the control group.
Among the approximately 900 coronavirus patients who received oxygen, those in the remdesivir group were able to breathe on their own after 13 days compared to 21 days for those who received placebo.
About 11% of patients in the remdesivir group died compared to about 15% in the control group, showing that the drug reduced the risk of death by 30%. Pictured: Medical staff treat a COVID-19 ICU patient at United Memorial Medical Center in Houston, Texas on July 28
The effects were even more pronounced in those with severe cases, with remdesivir patients recovering after a median of 11 days and placebo patients at a median of 18 days.
Among the more than 900 coronavirus patients who received oxygen, those in the remdesivir group were able to breathe on their own after 13 days compared to 21 days for those who received placebo.
The team said the benefit of remdesivir was greatest when it was given early in the disease, but was still seen in those who received it later.
‘In fact, the study showed that there were still benefits. Even people who were quite late, after 10 days [of illness], they still benefited from resdesivir, “Beigel said.
It wasn’t that strong. Getting treatment early is still a benefit, but there was also a clear benefit for those who arrived in 10 days or more. ‘
The results also suggested a survival benefit with 11.4 percent in the remdesivir group dying compared to 15.2 percent in the control group on day 29.
That’s a mortality risk reduction of about 30 percent.
Additionally, more serious adverse events were reported in the placebo group (31.6 percent) compared to 24.6 percent in the remdesivir group.
Such events include experiencing acute respiratory failure and the need to be intubated.
Beigel says the data suggests that remdesivir treatment may have prevented some mild or moderate cases from progressing to severe cases.
“Treatment with remdesivir made people better, but it also prevented some of the people from getting worse,” he said.
“ The numbers are small, but … it’s very clear that there were fewer people deteriorating in the treatment arm than in the control arm. ”
