The anti-viral drug Remedesivir has been one of the few drugs that doctors say has shown tremendous promise in the fight against COVID-19.
Doctors in Dallas now report further evidence detailed by drugmaker Gilead in a press release Friday.
Dr. Robert Gottlieb, Baylor Scott & White Research Institute, co-author of “Remdesivir for severe COVID-19 versus a cohort receiving standard of care," talked with NBC 5 about their comparative analysis that showed the chance of survival of 62% in patients with severe COVID-19.
"Knowing that not every hospital had access to Remdesivir, we wanted to see how our results compared with those hospitals who did not use Remdesivir. So we took a constellation of hospitals that approximated the quality of those that participated in the trial and examined the outcomes of a group of comparable patients during the same time. What we found was that patients on Remdesivir had an improved chance of survival compared to the patients without Remdesivir. It decreased the odds of passing away from COVID-19 by about 62%," said Gottlieb.
Right now, Remdesivir is given to hospitalized patients through an I-V.
Drugmaker Gilead announced earlier this month that it would begin a clinical trial on an inhaled form of the drug, which could potentially be used to treat people at home.
Previous studies have already found that the drug shortened hospital stays by about four days.
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"It's not a magic bullet. It's not a pure miracle. There is still risk associated and prevention is still better, but if you have the disease and you're eligible for the medicine, I know that for my family members, I would want them to receive medicine if they could," said Gottlieb.
Gottlieb said Gilead has ramped up production, but it's imperative people do what they can to avoid getting sick, so that fewer people would fall in and would need treatment, helping doctors maximize their resources.
