Coronavirus: remdesivir study finds hospital stays for Covid-19 patients could be reduced without affecting treatment outcome, Hong Kong expert says
- Respiratory medicine expert Professor David Hui says identifying the shortest duration of effective treatment is an urgent medical need
- Hong Kong records no new coronavirus cases on Thursday as city prepares to further ease social-distancing measures
Professor David Hui Shu-cheong, a Chinese University respiratory medicine expert involved in the clinical study, said identifying the shortest duration of effective treatment was an urgent medical need.
“The revelations show hospital stays can be reduced without a loss of efficacy, which would mean lower risks for patients to catch viruses in hospitals too. The limited supply of remdesivir available during this pandemic can be better conserved too,” said Hui, who also sits on a government panel of experts advising the city’s leader on the health crisis.
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Published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Thursday, the research, conducted by a group of international experts, involved 397 patients from 55 hospitals in the United States, Italy, Spain, Germany, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan between March 6 and 26.
The patients were aged above 12 and had a severe Covid-19 infection but were not ill enough to require mechanical ventilation. They were separated into two groups – 200 took the drug for five days, and 197 who had “significantly worse” clinical conditions took it for 10 days.
By day 14, a clinical improvement of two points or more on a seven-point scale was recorded in 64 per cent of the patients in the first group, as opposed to 54 per cent in the second one.
After adjustment for imbalances in their initial disease severity, the researchers concluded there was “no significant difference in efficacy” between the different courses of therapy. Outcomes such as clinical conditions on day 14, time to clinical improvement, recovery and mortality rates, were all similar.