How Remdesivir Moved From Back Shelf to Best Hope for Treating COVID-19

This study showed that a five-day regimen is as effective as 10 days–that’s important, doctors say, since it could mean shorter stays in the hospital, which could alleviate some of the burden on the health care system. “Of course we will have to wait for the final review of all the data, but it would be very nice to have an anti-viral that’s efficacious in this terrible illness,” says Dr. Aruna Subramanian, a clinical professor of medicine at Stanford and an investigator on the study. “At least we know that we can help patients with this, and that’s really the bottom line.” That optimism is still tempered with a sizable amount of caution, since researchers have outstanding and important questions about which patients might benefit most, and when in the course of a COVID-19 illness the drug will work best. The study begun in China, for example, did not find the same positive results among severely ill patients. In that study, people taking the drug did no better than those given a placebo. However, the researchers had to end that trial early because cases started to wane in China and they could not enroll enough people with advanced COVID-19; that means the results–despite being discouraging–may not be statistically significant. In any case, the results from the NIAID study were strong enough for the U.S. FDA to issue the emergency-use authorization so more sick patients might benefit from it. The NIAID study will als...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 feature Magazine Source Type: news