Hope For Covid-19 Cure As New Experimental Drug Proves Effective Against The Pandemic
An experimental drug has proved effective against the deadly Coronavirus in a major study done by the National Institutes of Health, the US Government has announced.
With the U.S. death toll from the virus outbreak topping 60,000 this week and confirmed cases of COVID-19 in America surpassing the 1 million mark, the country has seized on news that the antiviral drug Remdesivir is a potential treatment for the disease, YahooNews reports.
White House health advisor and the leading expert on infectious diseases on the coronavirus task force, Dr. Anthony Fauci, hailed the results of a clinical trial, under the auspices of the agency he heads, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
According to the double-blind study, involving more than 1,000 people, the drug shortens the time it takes for patients to recover by four days on average, and it is the first drug treatment to pass such a strict test against the virus.
Remdesivir, produced by Gilead Sciences was tested in 1,063 hospitalized Coronavirus patients around the world and according to Dr. Fauci, the drug reduced the time it takes patients to recover by 31%, 11 days on average versus 15 days for those just given usual care.
Fauci also said the drug led to fewer deaths among Covid-19 patients.
Dr Anthony Fauci further revealed that data collected from the Coronavirus drug trial testing with the antiviral drug showed ‘quite good news‘ and has set a new standard of care for COVID-19 patients.
“The data shows that remdesivir has a clear-cut, significant, positive effect in diminishing the time to recovery,” Fauci said in a Wednesday interview with NBC News, adding that remdesivir’s recent clinical trial “has proven that a drug can block the virus. This will be the standard of care.”
Covid-19 has killed over 300,000 people since it emerged late last year in China and a treatment that works against it could greatly slow down the death rate.
A statement from the US Food and Drug Administration says that the agency has been talking with California-based Gilead “regarding making remdesivir available to patients as quickly as possible, as appropriate.”
“We are excited and optimistic,” said one expert, Vanderbilt University’s Dr. Mark Denison whose laboratory first tested remdesivir against other coronaviruses in 2013. He added:
“It’s active against every coronavirus that we’ve ever tested. It was very hard for the virus to develop resistance to remdesivir. That means the drug would likely be effective over longer term use.”
The company producing the drugs have revealed that it would publish it’s results and findings in a medical journal soon.