Remdesivir, has showed promising results in treating people with Corona virus reported researchers at University of Chicago. This information was revealed in an internal video showing the discussion if the drug trials amongst University of Chicago faculty according to STAT. Research shows that the treatment may help Covid-19 patients in their breathing. In Chicago nearly all the patients were discharged after experiencing trials of the treatment in less than a week. The treatment is a nucleoside analogue which inhibits viral reproduction, it is also an antiviral treatment. RDV was given to patients with severe Covid-19 infections by Gilead science Inc. The treatment was tried out in Chicago on 125 patients, results show that the patients taking the treatment were well enough to be released with only two persons dying. The New England Journal of Medicine also reported of 53 patients under the treatment and confirmed that 68 percent of the patients had a reduction in the amount of oxygen support needed while the remaining were able to come off ventilators.
The treatment had also in the past being a potential treatment for Ebola. A Gilead spokeswoman in an interview with fox news said “we are grateful for all the efforts of investigators and patients participating in our studies”. The treatment still awaits regulatory approval for covid-19. Gilead has warned against reading too much meaning into the initial results until conclusions had been drawn from other trials. Remdesivir has been considered as the best candidate because of it existing data based on Animal and human bodies.
Although the treatment have shown slightly effective results, covid-19 patients can’t rely on the treatment yet as it has not been proven to be effective in batting corona virus. The research conducted on the treatment is in two stages, one in patients with milder cases and the second one patients with severe cases. In China, the experiment of remdesivir trials was stalled due to lack of severe cases to enroll. Another research for the treatment is currently going on in other patients and results are expected by the end of the month.
