Remdesivir Did Not Cut Hospital Stay Or Mortality In COVID-19 Patients, Finds WHO
Remdesivir, one of first to be used as coronavirus treatment and the?only antiviral drug authorized for treatment of COVID-19 in the United States, fails to prevent deaths among patients, according to a study sponsored by the World Health Organization (WHO).?
WHO's findings on Remdesivir
A clinical trial by the WHO has found that Remdesivir had little or no effect on COVID-19 patients' length of hospital stay or chances of survival. The WHO?said,?"The study found the regimens appeared to have little or no effect on 28-day mortality or the length of the in-hospital course among patients hospitalized with COVID-19."??
The results are from WHO's "Solidarity" trial that has been conducted on more than 11,000 people in 30 countries,?evaluated the effects of four potential drug regimens, including?Gilead Sciences Inc's?remdesivir, hydroxychloroquine, anti-HIV drug combination lopinavir/ritonavir and interferon.
The antiviral medication Remdesivir was also one of the drugs recently used to treat US President Donald Trump's coronavirus infection.??
WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said that during the study, hydroxychloroquine and lopinavir/ritonavir were stopped in June after they proved ineffective, but other trials continued in more than 500 hospitals and 30 countries.
"We're looking at what's next. We're looking at monoclonal anti-bodies, we're looking at immunomodulators and some of the newer anti-viral drugs that have been developed in the last few months," Swaminathan said.
What drugmaker Gilead said
Earlier this month, data from a US study of Remdesivir by Gilead showed the treatment cut COVID-19 recovery time by five days compared with patients who got a placebo in a trial comprising 1,062 patients.
"The emerging (WHO) data appears inconsistent, with more robust evidence from multiple randomized, controlled studies published in peer-reviewed journals validating the clinical benefit of remdesivir," Gilead told Reuters. It added, "We are concerned the data from this open-label global trial has not undergone the rigorous review required to allow for constructive scientific discussion, particularly given the limitations of the trial design."
Drug authorised for use in several nations
Remdesivir, which was originally developed as a treatment for Ebola and hepatitis C, interferes with the reproduction of viruses by jamming itself into new viral genes. The drug received emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on May 1which found that remdesivir modestly reduced the time to recovery in severely ill patients, and has since been authorized for use in several countries.
That study, too, did not find that Remdesivir prevented deaths in patients with COVID-19. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, acknowledged at the time that Remdesivir was not a ¡°knockout¡± drug.
