Limited leaked results of a closely followed clinical trial for the anti-viral drug remdesivir have revealed that nearly all severely ill COVID-19 patients receiving the drug rapidly recovered.
Though it’s hard to get too excited until the full clinical trial results become available, the early news, reported by Stat, is encouraging. Of the 125 COVID-19 patients in the study at the University of Chicago Medicine, 113 had severe cases of the disease. Yet, the overwhelming majority rapidly recovered within six days of receiving daily infusions of remdesivir, and only two patients died.
To be clear, this was just one part of the study being conducted by drugmaker Gilead, which ultimately has 2,400 subjects across the country. But, given the high fatality rate of the disease among those who are already severely ill, the results provide hope. And results from the full study should be available later this month.
A successful trial would likely prompt the Food and Drug Administration to issue quick approval of the drug so that it could be rapidly manufactured and administered.
Short of a vaccine, a successful drug therapy is the only real potential game-changer that could save the United States from navigating the brutal trade-offs between economic devastation and mass death. If there were a drug that could effectively treat most severely ill patients, it would significantly address the fears of the medical system becoming overwhelmed and drive down the fatality rate of the virus. In that case, the risk of resuming economic and social activities could be reduced to a manageable level.
Fingers crossed that the broader study has similar results to this small sample.
