In a recent and positive development towards the discovery of a cure for the deadly pandemic of COVID – 19, pharma major Gilead Sciences Inc’s antiviral drug Remdesivir has displayed positive data for the COVID – 19 infected patients when it was administered early. It must be noted that this is not a vaccine but inches towards a possible cure as a prescriptive drug.
A study conducted by Gilead has revealed that 62% of the patients who were administered the drug early recovered and were discharged as compared to the 49% who were treated later than them. The experiment and trials spread over a treatment period of 5 – 10 days.
This has created a lot of anticipation and interest as no confirmed treatment or preventive vaccines for COVID- 19 are currently available. Any remedy that minimises the infection and prevents the lungs from shutting down completely as it happens in the extremely severe cases is being welcomed by doctors.
Gilead Sciences said that the preliminary results of a coronavirus drug trial after a 5 day dosage showed encouraging results. The clinical trial was conducted on 397 severely affected COVID – 19 patients.
This data is encouraging, because as of now there are no proven treatments for COVID-19, the deadly disease which has infected more than 3 million people worldwide with a death toll of 217,569 as of Wednesday morning, as per the data compiled by John Hopkins University.
There are also on-going studies testing this drug to see if it is useful in preventing the replication of the virus.
The results of administering Remdesivir to patients affected by SARS and MERS also caused by coronavirus was encouraging. Remdesivir has been used by some health authorities in China, US and other parts of the world as a drug that could reduce the duration of COVID- 19 in the infected patients.
While there are no confirmed reports released as yet about Remdesivir as a cure for COVID – 19 at least there is a ray of hope that we are possibly moving in the right direction.
