Remdesivir has very little effect on Covid-19 mortality, WHO finds

[nitpicker]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by applegrove (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).

Source: The Guardian

Remdesivir has very little effect on Covid-19 mortality, WHO finds
Results of major trial described as sobering, with drug found not to improve survival rates

Fri 16 Oct 2020 13.00 BSTFirst published on Fri 16 Oct 2020 12.58 BST

Remdesivir, one of the big treatment hopes for Covid-19, has very little effect on preventing deaths, according to a large and comprehensive trial run by the World Health Organization.

The drug, made by the US biotech firm Gilead, has been talked up as a potential cure and was taken by Donald Trump. A trial in the US had previously showed it reduced the length of stay in hospital. But the gold-standard Solidarity WHO trial, which was based on a far larger sample – 3,000 people on the drug, compared with as many who were not – showed remdesivir had little effect on deaths over 28 days.
(snip)

The WHO’s guideline committee will look at the data from its trial and others and decide what recommendations to make about the drug.

Three other drugs were trialled in the Solidarity study, which has recruited more than 12,000 patients across 30 countries, and none had very much effect on mortality. They were hydroxychloroquine, which had already been found to have no benefit by the University of Oxford’s Recovery trial, lopinavir, an antiretroviral used in HIV treatment, and interferon, given as an injection under the skin.
(snip)

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/16/remdesivir-has-very-little-effect-on-covid-19-mortality-who-finds-trial-drug-coronavirus

[Laelth]

1. To my knowledge, Dexamethasone is the only drug yet proven to be effective.

And it’s quite dangerous—used only on the most severe cases like the President.

-Laelth

[FarPoint]

2. And...

It's cheap

[Laelth]

3. Yes. That's because it's really old.

Trump, naturally, argued that the Regeneron he took is what made him feel better. He owns stock in the company that makes Regeneron, but Dexamethasone is undoubtedly what did it. He just can’t make money on that drug.

-Laelth

[FarPoint]

4. I see...

We are on the same train of thought.

[Phoenix61]

6. It has the same side effects as other corticosteroids.

When used with covid patients it's been shown to improve the outcomes for those on oxygen or mechanical breathing assistance. It has no impact on other covid patients. This actually makes sense since the thought is lung inflammation is due to the body's immune response rather than a direct effect of the virus.

[Warpy]

5. Interferon A given by nebulizer has shown early promise

It was simply ineffective given by other routes.

I read early last summer that remdesivir was most effective in mild cases that people would have recovered from with no treatment. That bit of news came out while Dumdum and Jarjar were cornering the world supply of it.

There is no silver bullet for this thing. Some people will get better with supportive treatment and some will die and right now, there's nothing much we can do about it. While the monocolonal antibodies might improve things, the immense cost and difficulty in manufacturing them will preclude wide distribution.

Our best hope now, as it has been from the beginning, is a vaccine. If reinfection after a year or two proves common, we'll likely see a yearly combination jab for Covid and flu.

[applegrove]

8. LOCKING

Alert: duplicate post

Below is the previous LBN OP on the same topic:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142605767

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