Remdesivir speeds up COVID-19 patients recovery, study reveals

May 26, 2020  13:37

The drug remdesivir really accelerates recovery in patients with COVID-19, as scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in the US found out.

Their article was distributed in the New England Journal of Medicine.

They conducted a study involving 1,063 COVID-19 patients. Patients from the control group received a placebo, and volunteers from the experimental group were given remdesivir intravenously for 10 days, with a dose of 200 milligrams on the first day of treatment, and 100 milligrams on the next day. On average, patients who received the drug recovered within 11 days, and those who received a placebo recovered in 15 days.

Remdesivir also reduced mortality: the proportion of deaths among patients in the experimental group was 7.1%, and in the control group - 11.9%. Severe complications were reported in 114 patients out of 541 of those (21.2%) who received the experimental drug, and 141 out of 522 of those (27%) who received the placebo.

Remdesivir is an antiviral drug that was originally developed against the Ebola virus. Experts note that, despite the shown effectiveness against coronaviruses, remdesivir cannot be considered as a universal drug, since the mortality rate when it is taken remains high enough.

 

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