government is allocating doses to hospitals through September. Gilead also has started testing remdesivir in a small group of children. Meanwhile, Gilead Sciences, the company that makes remdesivir, which is given as an IV now, has started testing an inhaled version that would allow it to be tried in less ill COVID-19 patients to try to keep them from getting sick enough to need hospitalization. “The role of remdesivir in severe COVID is now what we need to figure out,” Memorial Sloan Kettering's Bach wrote in an email, saying the drug needs to be tested in combination with dexamethasone now.ĭetails of the government-led remdesivir study have not yet been published, but researchers are eager to see how many patients received other drugs such as steroids and hydroxychloroquine. The only other therapy that’s been shown to help COVID-19 patients is remdesivir, an antiviral that shortens hospitalization by about four days on average. Neil Schluger from New York Medical College wrote in a commentary in the journal. “It is time to move on” from treating patients with this drug, Dr. Two other experiments found that early treatment with the drug did not help outpatients with mild COVID-19.Ī study of 293 people from Spain published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases found no significant differences in reducing the amount of virus patients had, the risk of worsening and needing hospitalization, or the time until recovery.Ī similar study by University of Minnesota doctors in Annals of Internal Medicine of 423 mildly ill COVID-19 patients found that hydroxychloroquine did not substantially reduce symptom severity and brought more side effects. Those not needing breathing machines when they started treatment also were more likely to end up on one or to die. Patients given hydroxychloroquine were less likely to leave the hospital alive within 28 days - 60% on the drug versus 63% given usual care.

Now, details published on a research site for scientists show that the drug may have done harm. Peter Bach, a health policy expert at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. It’s now time to do more studies comparing treatments and testing combinations, said Dr. Clifford Lane of the National Institutes of Health wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine. “For the field to move forward and for patients’ outcomes to improve, there will need to be fewer small or inconclusive studies” and more like the British one, Drs. Two other studies found that the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine does not help people with only mild symptoms.įor months before studies like these, learning what helps or harms has been undermined by “desperation science” as doctors and patients tried therapies on their own or through a host of studies not strong enough to give clear answers. Fresh studies give more information about what treatments do or don’t work for COVID-19, with high-quality methods that give reliable results.īritish researchers on Friday published their research on the only drug shown to improve survival - a cheap steroid called dexamethasone.

Clarify covid 19