Last Sunday I blogged about promising results for clinical trials for using remdesivir to treat COVID-19 illness. Right after that, the WHO accidentally posted a report that showed there was no clinical improvement in patients severely infected with the disease who were given the drug.
Then, later in the week, the NIH announced that a different clinical trial found that the drug accelerated recovery among patients that had advanced disease. It was a randomized, controlled trial involving 1063 patients (decent sample size).
The study found that patients who got remdesivir recovered 31% faster than the people that got the placebo (p<0.001). The median time to recovery was 11 days for patients treated with remdesivir compared with 15 days for those who got the placebo. Results also suggested a survival benefit, with a mortality rate of 8.0% for the group receiving remdesivir versus 11.6% for the placebo group (p=0.059).
Finally, on Friday the FDA issued an Emergency Use Authorization for remdesivir to treat COVID. That means doc’s can now prescribe for patients without enrolling them in a clinical trial or getting compassionate use approval.
