The United States has bought up virtually all stocks of a drug shown to reduce the recovery time of COVID-19 patients. The U.K. is confident is has enough of the drug for now, but it is not clear when its own stockpile will run out. Remdesivir – an anti-viral drug first developed to tackle Ebola – has been approved for use treating coronavirus in the UK and the US after trials suggested it could cut recovery time by around four days. But the U.S. said it had secured more than 500,000 courses of the drug, which is produced by U.S. pharmaceutical firm Gilead, for American hospitals. In May, the United Nations announced a £6.5 billion ($8.1 billion) program to speed up global access to safe, affordable and universal coronavirus vaccines and medicines.

Source: Huffington Post July 01, 2020 15:40 UTC