The top infectious diseases public health official in the United States has expressed optimism over an experimental drug to fight the coronavirus.
While further study of the drug’s efficacy is still outstanding, Dr Anthony Fauci pointed to a clear-cut positive effective of the drug remdesivir from Gilead Sciences in diminishing the recovery time of COVID-19 patients, data he’s called “highly significant”.
A federally run trial of more than 1000 patients found that those who received the drug recovered much faster than those who received a placebo.
A dose of positive news.
Preliminary results from the study that was sponsored by the US National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases showed a marked in improvement in recovery time for patients. Listen to the Institute’s Director Dr Anthony Fauci.
Dr. Anthony Fauci said Gilead Sciences’ antiviral drug remdesivir will become the standard of care for COVID-19 after early results from a key clinical trial showed it helped patients recover more quickly https://t.co/iUXrudXDLA https://t.co/UgvdMIJTkk
— Reuters (@Reuters) April 29, 2020
“The data shows that remdesivir has a clear cut, significant positive effect in diminishing the time to recovery. This is really quite important for a number of reasons and I’ll give you the data. It’s highly significant. If you look at the time to recovery being shorter in the remdesivir arm, it was 11 days compared to 15 days. And that’s a P value, for the scientists who are listening, of 0.001. So, that’s something that — although a 31% improvement doesn’t seem like a knockout 100%, it is a very important proof of concept. Because what it is proven is that a drug can block this virus.”
There are indications that the antiviral medication led to fewer deaths but those results are yet to be peer-reviewed – a standard practice for affirming the findings from studies of this nature. But Fauci believes it’s opening the door to better treatment of COVID-19 patients – much like AZT did for HIV positive patients in the late 1980s.
“The reason why we’re making the announcement now is something that I believe people don’t fully appreciate. Whenever you have clear-cut evidence that a drug works, you have an ethical obligation to immediately let the people who are in the placebo group know so that they could have access. And all of the other trials that are taking place now have a new standard of care.”
The United States President Donald Trump welcomed the news.
“Well, I think it’s a beginning. I thought Tony (Fauci) explained it really well. It’s a beginning. It means you build on it. I love that as a building block, you know, just as a building block. I love that. But certainly, it’s a, it’s a positive, it’s a very positive event.”
A separate clinical trial in China published by Lancet presented a mixed picture of the same drug’s efficacy, showing that it didn’t affect recovery times or reduce deaths from COVID-19 – a clear indication that for now, the jury is still out despite the positive sentiment.
