Remdesivir, a prospective drug thought for treating COVID-19, had been revealed to not affect the first full trial.
There had been a short supply of the drug, globally, due to the excitement it created. It is one of the drug President Donald Trump has claimed to be “promising”.
237 patients underwent a “gold standard” trial, Remdesivir was received by some while others did not, but the drug did not work. The report said the trial was stopped early to avoid side effects.
According to The Guardian, news of the failure was posted on a World Health Organization (WHO) clinical trial database but removed later. AWHO spokesman said it has been uploaded too soon by accident.
“A draft document was provided by the authors to WHO and inadvertently posted on the website and taken down as soon as the mistake was noticed. The manuscript is undergoing peer review and we are waiting for a final version before WHO comments,”
Remdesivir is made by Gilead Science, a US company. It is an antiviral that was tried in Ebola but failed to be effective in Africa.
It was reported that many doctors have given patients remdesivir to patients on “compassion ground” without waiting for trials.
The trial of the drug in China, on patients with severe COVID-19 symptoms, may give some doctors pause. Gilead, however, claimed there were still signs that it could be useful, possibly in patients with milder versions of the disease.
In the trial, 158 patients were randomly assigned to be given remdesivir, while 79 others had standard care with a placebo instead. There was no difference between the groups concerning recovery time. Just under 14% of those on remdesivir died, compared with nearly 13% of those not taking the treatment.
“In this study of hospitalized adult patients with severe COVID-19, [which] was terminated prematurely, remdesivir was not associated with clinical or virological benefits,” said the report on the WHO website.
*Bada Yusuf Amoo is a Staff Writer with The West African Pilot News
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