London: The coronavirus-ravaged world was hoping that some sort of vaccine will soon emerge to fight the deadly disease. There had been widespread hope that anti-viral drug ‘Remdesivir’ could be used for curing coronavirus affected patients.
WHO report
However, a document which was published accidentally by the World Health Organisation (WHO) said that clinical trials of drug have failed. So hopes of a quick cure from the deadly virus have once again diminished.
‘Gilead Sciences’ the producers of ‘Remdesivir’ said the document had ‘mischaracterised’ the study. WHO has also removed the report it had accidentally uploaded on its website.
Clinical trials fail
The report said that 237 patients suffering from coronavirus were involved in the clinical trials. Among them 158 were given Remdesivir while the remaining 79 received a placebo. After a month-long administration, 13.9 per cent of the patients receiving Remdesivir had died.
The WHO report said that the trial was stopped early due to side effects suffered by 18 patients after administration of Remdesivir. It added that 12.8 per cent of the 79 others receiving a different form of treatment had also died.
Manufacturers still optimistic
A spokesman for Gilead pointed out that the due to low enrollment the trials did not appear meaningful and had been cancelled. “We believe the post included inappropriate characterizations of the study. The trial was terminated early due to low enrollment and was therefore not statistically meaningful,” the spokesman has been quoted as saying.
“As such, the study results are inconclusive. However, trends in the data suggest a potential benefit for Remdesivir, particularly among patients treated early in disease,” the spokesman added.
Use of Remdesivir
Remdesivir is administered intravenously. It was among the first drugs suggested as a treatment for the novel coronavirus. Initially there was some success creating hope for a possible cure against the pandemic coronavirus.
Remdesivir had previously been used to fight Ebola, but there also the clinical trials had failed. It belongs to a class of drugs that act on the virus directly – as opposed to controlling the abnormal and often lethal autoimmune response it causes.
It mimics one of the four building blocks of RNA and DNA and gets absorbed into the virus’s genome, which in turn stops the pathogen from replicating.
However, now it seems that trials with other drugs will start all over again.
Stephen Evans, a professor of pharmacoepidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine had his own view to offer. He was not involved in the clinical trials of Remdesivir, but pointed out that the ‘the trial was too small in numbers recruited’. It is not possible to judge the merit or demerit of any type of drug when the trials take place on a very small number of people, he opined. “If the drug only works well when given very early after infection, it may be much less useful in practice,” Evans has been quoted as saying by the ‘BBC’.
Other coronavirus treatment methods
It should be stated here that in the US anti-malarial drugs like hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine are also being used to treat to coronavirus patients. However, those two drugs have also failed to provide concrete evidence that they can be used on COVID-19 patients. In some elderly patients the use of hydroxychloroquine has had lethal side effects. It created respiratory problems leading to the deaths
Another method that is being tried out to cure coronavirus is plasma therapy. In this method, the blood of coronavirus survivors is transmitted to the body of the patient. In this type doctors are hoping that the antibodies in the blood of the survivor will destroy the COVID-19 virus in infected patients. Here again some cases have been successful and some have not. Hence the authenticity of plasma therapy has not been established till now.
Agencies