Large-scale clinical trials of the antiviral drug remdesivir confirm its effectiveness against Covid-19 coronavirus infection. The study is ongoing and only preliminary results have been published. However, the results were convincing enough for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in the United States to issue a special statement confirming the drug’s effectiveness.
“The data show that remdesivir has a clear, significant positive effect, accelerating recovery,” Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), told reporters.
The trial, which began more than two months ago on February 21, involves more than 1,000 patients from the United States, Asia, and Europe with a confirmed diagnosis of Covid-19. Researchers are using the double-blind method of testing: patients are divided into two groups, one of which receives remdesivir (in addition to standard symptomatic treatment) and the other a placebo. Neither the patients nor their doctors know which group they are in.
According to preliminary data, patients who received the experimental drug recovered almost one-and-a-half times faster – on average within 11 days, compared to 15 days for patients in the control group. There was also a difference in mortality rates, although not significant: 11.6% of patients died in the control group and 8% in the experimental group. If the final results of the trial do not differ significantly from the interim results, remdesivir will be the first drug to successfully complete clinical trials for Covid-19.
There is still no specific treatment for the coronavirus, which has claimed more than 200,000 lives. Patients are only treated symptomatically, which means that the fight is not against the infection itself, but against its manifestations. “Now we have enough data to consider the possibility of urgently allowing doctors to use [remdesivir],” former Food and Drug Administration chief Scott Gottlieb wrote on Twitter.
It is interesting to note that literally the day before, the Lancet published the results of another study on the effect of remdesivir on coronavirus. The experiment was carried out in China and ended with the opposite result: the effectiveness of the drug could not be proven. However, experts caution that the Chinese study, which involved only 237 patients, is not representative enough to draw such conclusions. The experiment had to be stopped early, mainly due to a lack of participants. We explain quickly, simply, and clearly what happened, why it matters, and what happens next. Episodes End of story Podcast advertising
Remdesivir belongs to the class of antiviral drugs, which means that its action is directed directly at the pathogen causing the infection, rather than suppressing the overactive immune response, which is the main harm to the patient in the case of Covid-19. The drug was developed in 2015 to fight Ebola fever, and its action is based on suppressing the virus’ ability to replicate.
The idea for the drug was born during a study of the deadly Middle Eastern virus MERS: Scientists discovered that during the replication of viral particles, enzymes can capture similar molecules instead of the necessary nitrogen bases. Imagine a disassembled construction set into which someone has thrown deceptively similarly shaped pieces – they fit perfectly into the base of the model, but nothing can be placed on top of them. Remdesivir is just such a deception for the virus: it provides infected cells with “meaningless” molecules of the required shape, which are incorporated into the new virus by assembly enzymes instead of the necessary components. This disrupts the sequence of the RNA chain of the virus and it loses its ability to replicate. This slows the spread of the infection.
The drug was first tested during the Ebola epidemic in West Africa. It proved to be safe and was even recommended as a treatment for the virus, but soon remdesivir was abandoned: in clinical trials for effectiveness against Ebola, it was inferior to another drug.