Photo by Jason W. Edwards
Photo by Jason W. Edwards

Antiviral drug may cut COVID-19 recovery time, reduce death rate

Embargoed until: Publicly released:
Peer-reviewed: This work was reviewed and scrutinised by relevant independent experts.

Randomised controlled trial: Subjects are randomly assigned to a test group, which receives the treatment, or a control group, which commonly receives a placebo. In 'blind' trials, participants do not know which group they are in; in ‘double blind’ trials, the experimenters do not know either. Blinding trials helps removes bias.

People: This is a study based on research using people.

Preliminary results from a thousand-patient trial of the antiviral drug remdesivir has found it shortened the time to recovery in adults hospitalized with COVID-19. Patients taking remdesivir had a median recovery time of 11 days, and an estimated mortality rate of 7.1 per cent - compared to the placebo group which had 14 day median recovery time and 11.9 per cent estimated mortality. The researchers say it is clear that treatment with an antiviral drug alone is not sufficient, given the high mortality despite the use of remdesivir. These results were used to inform the United States FDA’s emergency authorisation of remdesivir to treat COVID-19.

Journal/conference: New England Journal of Medicine

Link to research (DOI): 10.1056/NEJMoa2007764

Organisation/s: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, US

Funder: Funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and others; ACCT-1 ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT04280705

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  • New England Journal of Medicine
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