NEW STUDY: REMDESIVIR HELPS WHEN USED EARLY

The antiviral drug remdesivir can help keep unvaccinated people at risk of severe COVID-19 out of the hospital, according to a new study that found the treatment reduced hospitalization and death by 87 percent when given soon after diagnosis.

Early in the coronavirus pandemic, remdesivir, an infusion therapy developed by Gilead Sciences, was the first coronavirus treatment authorized by federal regulators for use in hospitals. Wednesday’s study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, is the first to show that remdesivir can be useful when given on an outpatient basis in the community.

The findings are based on research that predates the Delta variant that proliferated during the summer and Omicron, the variant spreading with great speed globally.

But the study’s main author and other researchers said remdesivir is likely to remain effective even as Omicron proves resistant to most medicines in a group known as monoclonal antibodies that have helped prevent people from needing to be hospitalized.

Many hospitals are bulging with patients and short on staff.

The study focused on unvaccinated patients, the group most likely to become seriously ill or die if infected.

“If you are going to be a skydiver and jump out of your own plane, it’s best to pack a primary chute as well as a secondary chute,” said the study’s principal investigator, Robert L. Gottlieb, the therapeutic lead for COVID-19 research at Baylor Scott & White Health, a medical system in Dallas.

“Vaccines are a primary chute,” Gottlieb said, while therapies such as remdesivir “are the secondary chute.”