CALIFORNIA: Gilead Sciences Inc's, a biopharmaceutical company, has recently announced that their remdesivir, an intravenous antiviral drug, helped keep high-risk COVID-19 patients out of the hospital in a randomised trial.
Remdesivir has currently authorised for emergency use in hospitalised patients. The company said that there were fewer medical visits and an 87 per cent lower risk of death and hospitalisation in Remdesivir-treated patients.
In their study, 562 patients were included. All of the patients were at increased risk of becoming critically ill. Half of them received three days of treatment with Veklury, the brand name of remdesivir. At the same time, the rest received a placebo. After four weeks, around 5.3 per cent of patients in the placebo group had been hospitalised or died, compared to 0.7 per cent of those who received remdesivir.
