More than 60% of a group of severely ill COVID-19 patients showed improvement when treated with remdesivir, an antiviral medication being studied during 2020 as a possible post-infection treatment for COVID-19 illness
Nonetheless, 36 of the 53 patients
treated with the drug or 68% of the group showed improvement.
The patients in the US, Italy,
France, Austria, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, Japan, and Canada received
the drug intravenously for at least ten days.
17 of 30 patients treated
with the drug while requiring mechanical ventilation improved. Eight patients
saw a worsening of disease. A total of seven patients, or 13%, died.
There have been 1.7 million
confirmed cases of COVID-19 and more than 100,000 people have died but there is
currently no existing treatment for the virus that caused a global pandemic.
"Although data from several
ongoing randomised, controlled trials will soon provide more informative
evidence regarding the safety and efficacy of remdesivir for Covid-19, the
outcomes observed in this compassionate-use program are the best currently
available data," the doctors wrote in the study published on Friday.
Remdesivir is also one of several
antivirals being tested in the European clinical "Discovery" study
which is looking at experimental treatments deemed priorities by the World
Heath Organisation (WHO).
That trial is also looking at the
drug hydrochloroquine which caused a certain frenzy over its supposed benefits
in treating COVID-19 despite few reliable studies of the drug's effects.
More comprehensive results from
studies of these drugs are expected next month.
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