Gilead Sciences COVID-19 Drug Is A Hope In Pandemic Fight — Lifestyle UG
On Wednesday, Gilead Sciences Inc. announced it had concluded its clinical trial of a COVID-19 treatment -with astonishing results.
Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading expert on infectious diseases, said that the results are “highly significant.” The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will now begin the process of approving the drug for widespread use.
Remdesivir, the antiviral drug used in the trial, was shown to help coronavirus patients recover from the disease 31% faster than those who did not receive the treatment.
What are the results of the clinical trials?
The clinical trials involved the use of a double-blind study, which examined two groups of patients. While one group received the actual treatment, the other group received a placebo or fake treatment with no chemical impact.
The process is dubbed double-blind because neither the participating patients nor the doctors know who is receiving the real drug. It is a way to remove any possible prejudice from the results.
Though the data are yet incomplete, the available information represents three different trials. The largest trial involved 1,063 patients who had been hospitalized with COVID-19.
The group that received remdesivir recovered in 11 days on average, while those who received the placebo recovered in an average of 15 days.
Of those who received remdesivir, about 8% died of virus-related complications, as opposed to the placebo group, where 11.6% of patients passed away.
The good news is that the recovery period for those who received remdesivir was 31% shorter than those in the placebo group, which experts say is significant.
The bad news is that the difference in survival rate between the two groups is considered statistically insignificant.
Another trial, conducted in China, did not yield such optimistic results.
In this case, the study didn’t show the use of remdesivir helped patients at all, but Gilead considers these findings to be inconclusive, as the trial was ended early.
Lastly, Gilead conducted a trial with a group of 397 patients whose cases were far more severe, and who had been sick for a longer period of time.
The trial showed greater benefits of the drug in patients who received it early on in their recovery, while those who received it late into their illness did not exhibit such benefits.
How does it work?
The post Gilead Sciences COVID-19 Drug Is A Beacon of Hope In Pandemic Fight appeared first on Lifestyle UG
Originally published at https://lifestyleug.com on May 1, 2020.
