While the Corona Virus vaccine will take months or even years to develop, scientists and researchers have been researching on already developed drugs to treat COVID-19. It has been more than 4 months since the coronavirus showed up. There are over 3,566,430 cases worldwide as of now and over 248,291 deaths. The death toll increases every day, yet no drug or vaccine has been demonstrated to be safe or effective against Coronavirus. However, in a recent clinical trial, an Antiviral drug Remdesivir was found effective. It didn’t work as a cure but reduced the recovery time of a COVID-19 patient.
According to Merdad Parsey, MD, PhD, Chief Medical Officer, Gilead Sciences:
Unlike traditional drug development, we are attempting to evaluate an investigational agent alongside an evolving global pandemic. Multiple concurrent studies are helping inform whether remdesivir is a safe and effective treatment for COVID-19 and how to best utilize the drug
Remdesivir recently got approved by the Food and Drug Administration to be used to treat severally ill COVID-19 patients. However, it does not guarantee an improved survival rate. President Trump, as usual, is supporting this drug like he supported hydroxychloroquine which was found effective against Corona Virus.
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In a recent trial, patients, who were severely ill, were given a placebo drug and remdesivir. The patients who were given remdesivir recovered in 11 days. While the ones who were given a placebo drug recovered in 15 days. So remdesivir cuts the duration of recovery from 15 days to 11 days. The drug sounds promising, but it has no effect on the survival rate. Dr. Fauci said:
The drug had a clear-cut, significant positive effect in diminishing the time to recovery.
What is Remdesivir?
It’s an anti-viral drug, that was used to treat Ebola, but it had no effect against it. The drug was developed by Gilead Sciences. This drug basically stops the virus from making copies of itself, limiting the spread of the virus. It is currently the most promising treatment against COVID-19.
Dr. Fauci speaks on the clinical trial for potential coronavirus treatment drug remdesivir:
— NBC News (@NBCNews) April 29, 2020
“What it has proven is that a drug can block this virus … This drug happens to be blocking an enzyme that the virus uses." pic.twitter.com/hFTPUIa8No
No drug is free from side-effects, especially anti-viral drugs. Remdesivir is no different.
Masab Farooque is a Tech Geek, Writer, and Founder at The Panther Tech. He is also a lead game developer at 10StaticStudios.
When he is not writing, he is mostly playing video games