A person holds a vial of the drug remdesivir in April 2020.ULRICH PERREY / AFP
The Government of Mexico has authorized this Friday the emergency use of remdesivir in early cases of covid-19.
The Federal Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risks (Cofepris) reported that the use of the drug is exclusively hospital and highly specialized.
"It is important to remember that the population should not self-medicate or self-prescribe," warned Cofepris through a statement.
The organ pointed out that the patient must have continuous vigilance during treatment.
The Mexican Foreign Minister, Marcelo Ebrad, celebrated the decision of the health authorities through his Twitter account.
The antiviral, manufactured by the American pharmaceutical company Gilead Science, was the first drug approved for the coronavirus in the world.
In Mexico, however, the endorsement of the drug has had a long and bumpy road.
In October, the Undersecretary of Health, Hugo López-Gatell, announced that the manufacturer's application for its use in the country had been rejected on two occasions.
"It has not been given a favorable opinion because the corresponding bodies of Cofepris have identified that the evidence does not suggest sufficient utility against the disease," said the official, the Mexican manager for the pandemic.
Given the refusal, the Mexican authorities asked the manufacturer for additional evidence to re-evaluate the request.
Now, with more than 193,000 dead and more than 1.6 million infected, the Mexican authorities have finally given the green light to a controversial drug whose effectiveness and high price have been questioned.
The US company has defended the efficacy of the treatment, ensuring that its use has been proven to shorten the recovery time of hospitalized patients for covid by an average of four days.
In November of last year, the World Health Organization (WHO) advised against the use of this antiviral due to the lack of conclusive evidence on its effectiveness in saving lives.
A month earlier, in October, the United States had authorized the full use of the drug in the treatment of hospitalized patients.
Even the president of the United States at that time, Donald Trump, received remdesivir during his treatment in a military hospital.
The high price of remdesivir has also been criticized by the medical community.
Gilead Science set a price of 390 dollars (8,000 pesos) per dose for the governments of developed countries in June.
According to their studies, each patient should receive an average of six vials of the drug, which is equivalent to a price of $ 2,340 per treatment, about 48,500 pesos.
"We believe that all patients will have access to the level at which we have set the price of remdesivir," said the US pharmacist at the time.
The emergency authorization of this drug in the country comes in the middle of a vaccination campaign that is progressing slowly.
From December until this Thursday, the vaccination brigades have injected 3.7 million doses.
Despite the controversy that still surrounds the drug, Gilead Science has stated on more than one occasion that its drug has regulatory approvals and temporary authorizations in more than 50 countries.
As of this Friday, Mexico is part of this list.
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