Treatment with compassionate-use remdesivir led to clinical improvement in 68 percent of patients with severe COVID-19, according to data published today in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Data were available for 53 patients in the United States, Europe, Canada and Japan who received at least one dose of remdesivir during January 25 through March 7, 2020. Thirty patients were receiving mechanical ventilation at baseline, and four were receiving extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. At a median of 18 days, 68 percent of patients improved in oxygen-support class. Nearly half of the patients were discharged, and seven patients (13 percent) died.
"Although data from several ongoing randomized, controlled trials will soon provide more informative evidence regarding the safety and efficacy of remdesivir for Covid-19, the outcomes observed in this compassionate-use program are the best currently available data," the authors write.