(ORDO NEWS) — According to a large international study , the antiviral drug remdesivir does not reduce mortality in COVID-19 patients compared to standard therapy.
In May, the United States allowed the use of remdesivir to treat patients with coronavirus infection. Then his tests showed that the drug works and allows you to quickly cope with the disease. But a new study by the WHO has shown that such conclusions are untenable.
The FDA in May authorized the emergency use of remdesivir to treat COVID-19, after a large study found the drug shortened the time it takes to recover from an illness compared to a placebo. By August in the United States, the drug was allowed to be taken by everyone, regardless of the severity of the disease.
However, the World Health Organization (WHO) decided to test the work of the new drug. The organization has recruited over 11,000 doctors and researchers from 30 countries totestremdesivir in patients with COVID-19. As a result, it turned out that the drug does not have a clinically significant effect on the body compared to the usual symptomatic therapy, which is now used to treat coronavirus infection.
About 4,100 patients were selected as a control group and did not receive any medication, while the rest of the doctors gave one of four drugs or a combination of several drugs. These drugs included remdesivir, hydroxychloroquine, the antiviral drug lopinavir, and the immunostimulatory compound interferon-β1A. About 650 patients received interferon and lopinavir simultaneously.
It turned out that no one drug or their combination leads to a significant decrease in mortality among patients compared with the control group. In addition, the drugs did not reduce the chances of the patients getting worse, nor did they shorten the time the patients stay in the hospital. Remdesivir may help in the early stages of the disease, according to other scientists. But even in this case, this drug is unjustifiably expensive, given the purely individual dynamics of the course of the disease.
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