Hospitals face tough decisions with limited supply of virus drug

Connecticut hospital officials are being judicious in their use of the antiviral drug remdesivir, as even some of the state’s larger health systems have only been given enough doses to treat a few dozen patients suffering from the respiratory illness COVID-19.

Yale New Haven Health

“There is insufficient clinical data to know who is most likely to benefit, so doctors have to guess. No one knows how best to allocate this scarce resource. As terrible as it might sound, the most fair way to distribute the drug in hospitals might be to flip a coin.” Summer Johnson McGee, dean of the School of Health Sciences at the University of New Haven

System, for instance, received enough doses to treat about 80 patients, said Dr. Gregory Buller, chairman of medicine and interim chief medical officer at Bridgeport Hospital, which is part of the Yale system. Bridgeport Hospital has been given enough to treat 17 people, Buller said, and treated its first patient with the drug on Monday.

He said the drug can only be used on patients who meet a strict criteria, which includes being at least 18 years old, having “really significant impairment of breathing,” and being in the hospital no longer than eight days. “We feel that, if the drug is going to work, it’s going to work in the earlier era of infection,” Buller said.

Gov. Ned Lamont said Monday the state received 30 cases of remdesivir with 40 doses per case, for a total of 1,200 doses. Lamont is working with the state’s congressional delegation and the Connecticut Hospital Association to secure more doses.

Though remdesivir has been shown to have some benefits for COVID-19 patients, including a shorter hospitalization period, Buller pointed out the medication is “far from a cure.”

“It might help some patients is how we’re viewing it,” he said.

In the meantime, hospitals

and health systems have to make difficult decisions about who can receive remdesivir. Buller said only a small amount of patients meet the criteria for receiving the drug. Within that group, he said, the sickest patients are chosen to receive remdesivir.

Another major health system in the state, Hartford HealthCare, received enough doses to treat a total of roughly 50 patients.

HHC has seven acute care hospitals, including Hartford Hospital and St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Bridgeport.

At a Monday news briefing, Eric Arlia, HHC senior director of pharmacy, said the medication had already been distributed to between 10 to 15 patients.

Despite the guidelines, there’s no ideal way for hospitals to choose who is going to receive remdesivir,

said Summer Johnson McGee, dean of the School of Health Sciences at the University of New Haven.

“There is insufficient clinical data to know who is most likely to benefit, so doctors have to guess,” she said. “No one knows how best to allocate this scarce resource. As terrible as it might sound, the most fair way to distribute the drug in hospitals might be to flip a coin.”