White House immunologist Dr Anthony Fauci has announced the discovery of the first effective coronavirus treatment, which is set to be approved for use later today.
Speaking at the White House Wednesday, Dr Fauci said worldwide tests on anti-viral drug Remdesivir showed it had a ‘clear-cut, significant, positive effect in diminishing the time to recovery’ for Covid-19 patients who were treated with it.
”This is really quite important for a number of reasons, it’s highly significant.’ Dr Fauci said the average recovery time in patients given Remdesivir was 11 days, compared to 15 days for Covid-19 patients assigned the placebo, equivalent to a 31% improvement.
The mortality rate trended towards being better – 8% (of people given Remdesivir later died) versus 11% (who died after being given the placebo)’
Dr Fauci said Remdesivir’s early success was announced for ethical reasons, to give patients currently suffering from coronavirus a better chance of being treated with a drug now known to be effective.
It sponsored the trial, which began on February 21 and involved some patients being given a placebo – dummy treatment – while others were given Remdesivir itself.
Remdesivir was developed by drug company Gilead as an experimental anti-viral treatment it was hoped would treat Ebola. It failed to do so, but now appears to be the first drug that can help Covid-19 patients recover
