A drug used to treat Ebola patients has shown “very promising” early results in a trial of people admitted to hospital with coronavirus, scientists have said.
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases say that hospitalized patients with advanced COVID-19 and lung involvement who received Remdesivir recovered faster than similar patients who received placebo, according to a preliminary data analysis from a randomized, controlled trial involving 1063 patients, which began on February 21.
Recovery in this study was defined as being well enough for hospital discharge or returning to normal activity level.
The first trial participant in the ACTT trial was an American who was repatriated after being quarantined on the Diamond Princess cruise ship that docked in Yokohama, Japan, and volunteered to participate in the study at the first study site, the University of Nebraska Medical Center/Nebraska Medicine, in February 2020. A total of 68 sites ultimately joined the study—47 in the United States and 21 in countries in Europe and Asia.
