Woman with COVID-19 receives drug remdesivir
She began taking the drug May 15
The drug remdesivir, recently approved as an emergency treatment for COVID-19, has arrived at Baptist Memorial Hospital-memphis, said Dr. Steve Threlkeld, the hospital’s co-director of infection control.
So far, one patient is receiving the experimental drug, Threlkeld said. She is a middle-aged woman, and she began receiving the drug on May 15. Her 10-day course of treatment continues.
“She remains critically ill, with a lot of other treatments ongoing as well,” Threlkeld said.
Those treatments include extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or ECMO, a technique in which a patient’s blood is oxygenated outside the body in a sort of artificial lung. The patient is also receiving plasma that comes from a person who has recovered from COVID-19. The plasma treatment aims to use antibodies from the recovered patient to fight the infection in the sick person.
Remdesivir is one of the most notable new weapons currently available to doctors fighting the new coronavirus. A randomized, controlled study of more than 1,000 patients by the National Institutes of Health concluded that remdesivir speeds up recovery compared to a placebo.
The median time to recovery was 11 days for patients treated with remdesivir compared to 15 days for those who received a placebo, the NIH said. The results also suggested that the drug might reduce the chance of dying of the disease, but the numbers fell short of the threshold needed to show statistical significance.
On May 1, the Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency approval for remdesivir as a treatment for severely ill COVID-19 patients.
The company that makes the drug is increasing production, but supplies are still limited. Threlkeld said that Baptist got the drug by filing an application to the team at Vanderbilt University that controls the state’s supply.
The patient had to meet several criteria. Among them: The patient had to be seriously ill, since the government doesn’t want to waste the rare drug on patients who will get better anyway, Threlkeld said. Among the other factors is that the patient must also show decent kidney and liver function.
The 10-day course of treatment starts by dissolving 200 milligrams of the drug in fluid and delivering it by intravenous line the first day. Then on the next nine days, 100 milligrams of the drug are likewise dissolved in fluid and delivered by intravenous line, Threlkeld said.
Vanderbilt, state, others help to distribute remdesivir
The federal government recently announced it would send a limited supply of remdesivir to state health departments, said Kelly Insana, vice president of communications for the Tennessee Hospital Association.
The Tennessee Department of Health contacted the hospital association and asked the group to recommend a process for distribution, she said. THA’S board unanimously approved a process that places Vanderbilt University at the center of the distribution process.
The clinical team at Vanderbilt now reviews requests made by hospitals about specific patients and releases the drug on a first come first-served basis, she said. Doses of the drug are sent by courier service to the hospitals.
As of Thursday, Tennessee had received a total of 4,000 vials of the drug, which is enough to treat about 500 patients, she said. Hospitals across the state have already received the drug, though she didn’t give a number or specific names of hospitals beside Baptist.
She said that as of Wednesday, Baptist was the only hospital in the Memphis area that had received the drug so far, though another hospital might have received the drug on Thursday. It’s unclear if Tennessee will receive other shipments in the coming weeks or months.
Going forward, Baptist plans to keep using remdesivir when possible, Threlkeld said.
“We’re hopeful that it will help our patients and we’ll try to acquire it for anyone who meets the criteria,” he said.
Baptist Memorial Hospital-memphis, the health system’s flagship hospital on Walnut Grove in East Memphis, is one of the major hospitals treating seriously ill COVID-19 patients in this region.
As of Thursday, 35 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 at the hospital, including the woman receiving remdesivir, Threlkeld said. Of those 35, six were in intensive care. Of the six in the intensive care unit, four were on mechanical ventilators to help them breathe, he said.
The number 35 is higher than a few weeks ago – however, it’s lower than a peak in the low 40s last week.
COVID-19 patients are scattered throughout the area’s hospitals. County officials have said that at the moment, the Memphis area has enough hospital beds and ventilators to go around.
This week also marked the inauguration of a brand-new COVID-19 hospital in The Commercial Appeal’s former building at 495 Union Ave. The 401 beds in the new hospital will serve as a reserve space in case a new wave of COVID-19 patients overwhelms local health care capacity.
Remdesivir is one of the most notable new weapons currently available to doctors fighting the new coronavirus.