The US’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has authorised emergency use of the Ebola drug remdesivir for treating the coronavirus.<\/p>\n
The authorisation means the anti-viral drug can now be used on people who are hospitalised with severe Covid-19.<\/p>\n
A recent clinical trial showed the drug helped shorten the recovery time for people who were seriously ill.<\/p>\n
However, it did not significantly improve survival rates.<\/p>\n
Experts have warned the drug – which was originally developed to treat Ebola, and is produced by Gilead pharmaceutical company in California – should not be seen as a “magic bullet” for coronavirus.<\/p>\n
The drug interferes with the virus’s genome, disrupting its ability to replicate.<\/p>\n
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Drug has ‘clear-cut’ power to fight coronavirus<\/p>\n
During a meeting with US President Donald Trump in the Oval Office, Gilead Chief Executive Daniel O’Day said the FDA authorisation was an important first step.<\/p>\n
The company would donate 1.5 million vials of the drug, he said.<\/p>\n
FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn also said at the meeting: “It’s the first authorised therapy for Covid-19, so we’re really proud to be part of it.”<\/p>\n
Emergency FDA authorisation is not the same as formal approval, which requires a higher level of review.<\/p>\n
What do we know about remdesivir?<\/p>\n
The drug did not cure Ebola, and Gilead says on its website: “Remdesivir is an experimental medicine that does not have established safety or efficacy for the treatment of any condition.” Gilead also warns of possible serious side-effects.<\/p>\n
However, President Trump has been a vocal supporter of remdesivir as a potential treatment for the coronavirus.<\/p>\n
In its clinical trial, the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) found that remdesivir cut the duration of symptoms from 15 days down to 11.<\/p>\n
The trials involved 1,063 people at hospitals around the world – including the US, France, Italy, the UK, China and South Korea. Some patients were given the drug and others were given a placebo (dummy) treatment.<\/p>\n
Dr Anthony Fauci who runs NIAID, said that remdesivir had “a clear-cut, significant, positive effect in diminishing the time to recovery”.<\/p>\n
However, although remdesivir may aid recovery – and possibly stop people having to be treated in intensive care – the trials did not give any clear indication whether it can prevent deaths from coronavirus.<\/p>\n
As much remains uncertain about the treatment regime, Gilead suggests a 10-day dosing duration for patients on ventilators and five days for patients who are not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The US’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has authorised emergency use of the Ebola drug remdesivir for treating the coronavirus. The authorisation means the anti-viral drug can now be used on people who are hospitalised with severe Covid-19. A recent clinical trial showed the drug helped shorten the recovery time for people who were seriously ill. However, it did not significantly improve survival rates. Experts have warned the drug – which was originally developed to treat Ebola, and is produced by Gilead pharmaceutical company in California – should not be<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":20162,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[30,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20161"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20161"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20163,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20161\/revisions\/20163"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}