As coronavirus spread surge across the world, there seem to
be a ray of hope as two parallel medical solutions have been set to test on
COVI-19 patients
America becomes the recent continent to have recorded the
spread, and efforts by researchers from the University of Nebraska and at
Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute could begin testing
their vaccine.
Efforts to recruit patients for testing are under way, with the
first volunteers to test an experimental drug to treat COVID-19 recruited.
The testing will involve remdesivir, an antiviral drug
originally developed for Ebola, but which showed encouraging results in animals
in fighting SARS and MERS, two other illnesses caused by coronaviruses.
Time writes that, the drug is designed to treat infections
that are moderate to severe, and is targeted to those with the most intensive
symptoms.
For patients to undergo remdesivir test, they must test
positive for COVID-19 and have pneumonia.
Professor of medicine in the division of infectious disease
at University of Nebraska Medical Center Dr. Andre Kalil, said the study will
include 400 patients –with results released for the first 100 who will have
completed treatment.
He added that the trial will stay open for three years in
order to recruit the needed number of patients.
“This is not just a remdesivir trial,” he says. “It will
test as many [COVID-19] therapies as possible, and remdesivir is just the
first. Let’s say a couple of months from now, we realize that remdesivir is a
good drug, that it works better than placebo…. Then patients receiving the
placebo would be offered the drug and we would move on to test another drug,”
said Prof. Kalil
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