Difficult to navigate. The American Medicines Agency (FDA) granted authorization to use the antiviral remdesivir on Friday evening. An announcement joyfully shared by Donald Trump from the White House, despite the reservations of part of the scientific community.
The American laboratory Gilead Sciences claims that its drug has clear effects on the healing time of patients seriously affected by the new coronavirus. Basically developed to treat patients with Ebola hemorrhagic fever, remdesivir would shorten the recovery period by around four days - from 15 to 11, according to a study by the American Institutes of Health.
"Modest results", moderates Dr Fauci
This hope, however, deserves to be nuanced, like the debates around hydroxychloroquine, authorized in emergency by the FDA on March 28. Another study published in recent days in the leading medical journal The Lancet estimates that remdesivir has "no significant clinical benefit". "The treatment does not accelerate recovery or reduce mortality from Covid-19 compared to a placebo," says the study carried out in China on 237 patients, and relayed by the WHO.
Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, himself was very cautious Thursday when commenting on the findings of the American study. "Although the results are clearly positive from the point of view of their statistical sense, they are modest," he warned. The fact that the full results of the trial have not yet been published is also the subject of criticism from the scientific community, which is waiting for the study to be evaluated and published by a medical journal. The European Discovery program must also give its opinion on a test based on remdesivir.
Prescribed in the most affected hospitals
Concretely, American hospitals will now be able to use this medication for seriously ill Covid-19 patients who need oxygen, for example on respirators, without having to participate in a clinical trial. "It is reasonable to believe that remdesivir may be effective against Covid-19 and that, since there are no adequate, approved or available alternative treatments, the known and potential benefits for treating this severe and deadly virus outweigh the known and potential risks posed by the use of the drug, "said the FDA.
The antiviral will be distributed in priority to hospitals in the cities most affected by the pandemic in the United States, a distribution which will be coordinated by the American government, Gilead announced in a press release.