US to authorize remdesivir for coronaviru

Relief from pandemic may have come as a major study in the United States has found that an experimental drug, remdesivir works against COVID-19.
US government officials disclosed yesterday that they would work to make the drug, visually inspected at a Gilead manufacturing site in that country, available to appropriate patients as quickly as possible.
Given through an IV, the medication is said to be designed to interfere with an enzyme that reproduces viral genetic material.
According to Associated Press (AP), in a study of 1,063 patients sick enough to be hospitalized, Gilead Sciences’ remdesivir shortened the time of recovery by 31% —-11 days on average versus 15 days for those just given usual care.
The news agency reports that the drug also might be reducing deaths, though it is not certain from results of the study so far.
“What it has proven is that a drug can block this virus,” the National Institutes of Health’s Dr. Anthony Fauci said.
“This will be the standard of care,” and any other potential treatments will now have to be tested against or in combination with remdesivir, he added.
No drugs are currently approved for treating the coronavirus, which has killed more than 226,000 people worldwide since it emerged late last year in China.
An effective treatment could have a profound effect on pandemic’s impact, especially because a vaccine is likely to be a year or more away.
The drug had “a clear-cut significant positive effect,” shortening the time to hospital discharge by four days, Fauci said.
By comparison, antiviral drugs for the flu shorten illness by about one day on average and only when started within a day or two of symptoms first appearing.
Remdesivir is among dozens of treatments being tested against the coronavirus but was the farthest along in study. It is given through an IV and blocks an enzyme the virus uses to copy its genetic material.
“We are excited and optimistic” about the new results, said Vanderbilt University’s Dr. Mark Denison whose lab first tested remdesivir against other coronaviruses in 2013 and did much research on it, but was not involved in the NIH study.
“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,” Denison said