A huge trial like this one, conducted in various countries with various health care systems, can lead to inconsistent treatment protocols whose effects can be difficult to analyze, he said. The drug was granted emergency authorization by the Food and Drug Administration on May 1 following a trial by the National Institutes of Health, which found that remdesivir modestly reduced the time to recovery in severely ill patients. That study, too, did not find that remdesivir prevented deaths in patients with Covid-19. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, acknowledged at the time that remdesivir was not a “knockout” drug. A final analysis, published in The New England Journal of Medicine on Oct. 8, suggested “a trend toward reduced mortality” in certain patients receiving remdesivir, according to the drug’s maker, Gilead.

Source: New York Times October 16, 2020 00:39 UTC