New drug to help Australian patients fight off COVID-19 comes with ‘caveats’ – Sydney Morning Herald

“The important thing to note about any of these medications, of course, is that none of them as yet are a silver bullet,” Dr Coatsworth said.
“It’s a drug that is a direct-acting antiviral. What does that mean? It means that it stops the virus from multiplying further in the body.”
But international trials had shown remdesivir might be effective in patients with moderate to severe COVID-19, he said.
“They include a reduction in the length of hospital stay, and a potential reduction in the serious adverse events that coronavirus sufferers can get during their episode of coronavirus disease,” he said.
“What we don’t know yet is whether it has a conclusive effect on mortality.”
Gilead Sciences, the company behind remdesivir, said an analysis showed its antiviral drug had helped reduce the risk of death in severely ill COVID-19 patients, but cautioned that rigorous clinical trials were needed to confirm the benefit.
Remdesivir has been at the forefront of the global battle against COVID-19 after the intravenously administered medicine helped shorten hospital recovery times, according to data in April from a separate US government trial.
Gilead’s late-stage study evaluated the safety and efficacy of five-day and 10-day dosing durations of remdesivir in hospitalised patients. The study did not have a placebo comparison.
Dr Susan Olender from Columbia University Irving Medical Centre said in the Gilead statement that the analysis drew from a real-world setting and served as an important adjunct to clinical trial data even though it is not as vigorous as a randomised controlled trial.
Dr Walid Gellad, a professor at University of Pittsburghs medical school, called it “a joke” to compare clinical trial data with observational data and conclude anything definitive about mortality.
Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said on Saturday that the state’s clinical community would look at remdesivir and “love to have have it available for them” to use.
He said it was one of a number of drugs which could assist patients facing severe COVID-19 symptoms.
He said that while the Australian government would try to secure its own supply, stocks were affected because the “US really went very hard in gobbling up the entire global supply”.
“Remdesivir is another drug that is showing some effects, possibly not as strong as the simple and cheap dexamethasone steroid drug, but it certainly has a role, and it seems to reduce the amount of time people are ill for and require in hospital,” Professor Sutton said.
“It may have less of an effect on death rates … but will be part of the (arsenal) clinicians will look to.”
Meanwhile, Dr Coatsworth said the wearing of masks should be part of a suite of protective measures.
“We have been very clear that when community transmission goes up masks do have a value,” he said.
On vaccines, Dr Coatsworth said Australia needed to prepare for a world without a vaccine for two years.
“That would be a very judicious way of responding to COVID-19, and the reality I think is that there are so many people looking at a vaccine at the moment,” he said.
“There’s at least two novel vaccine development methodologies that are being rolled out … there is so much effort going into this that I think we should be hopeful that we can get a vaccine for COVID-19.”
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Kate Aubusson is Health Editor of The Sydney Morning Herald.
Ashleigh McMillan is a breaking news reporter at The Age. Got a story? Email me at [email protected]

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