Redsiway may not help treat COVID-19 patients, new WHO study finds

Oct 21, 2020 // -- A large-scale study by researchers from the WHO recently found that the antiviral drug Redsyvir may not be able to help treat hospitalized COVID-19 patients, compared with earlier studies that used Redsyvir as a standard treatment for COVID-19 patients in the United States and many other countries.
researchers' results, released Friday, do not negate previous findings, and of course, the WHO study is not as rigorous as the NIH-led study in the United States, but they add to concerns about the price of expensive drugs because none of the studies have found that they can improve patient survival.
Photo Source: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain's current drug Redsyvir is not approved in the United States for the treatment of COVID-19, but previous studies have found that the drug is authorized for emergency use after an average of five days of recovery time for patients;
WHO's study covered 11,000 patients from 30 countries, of whom about 2,750 were randomly assigned to the treatment of redsivir, while the rest were treated with the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, the immune system enhancer interferon, the antiviral combination Lopinavir-Litonavi, or daily care, and previous studies largely excluded other drugs treating COVID-19.
the researchers found that the mortality rate, demand for ventilators, and length of stay in the Redsiway treatment group were similar to those of patients in the daily inpatient care, and that the findings were not published in any journal or reviewed by independent scientists;
Redsyvir is an intravenous drug that lasts 5-10 days and costs about $2,550 per treatment, and COVID-19 is affecting millions of people and their families around the world, so researchers need to develop therapeutic treatments that are affordable to more people.
WHO spokesman Margaret Harris said it was an efficient study that included four times as many participants as other studies, but Andre Kalil, an expert on infectious diseases at the University of Nebraska who led the Redsiwe study in the United States, said: "We are not aware of this. The WHO's findings may not be reliable, he said, because patients and clinicians are well aware of the treatment they are using, and there is no placebo group to help avoid biased reporting of risks or benefits, and there is little information and a lack of data on the severity of the patient's symptoms at the start of treatment.
WHO's study only tested the effectiveness of Redsiway's treatment for 10 days, so some patients may have spent longer in hospital than they needed to complete the treatment, which would make their stay look similar to that of other people who received day-to-day care;
() References: 1 WHO study finds remdesivir didn't't help COVID-19 patients 2 repurposed antiviral drugs for COVID-19 -interim WHO SOLIDARITY trial results s 3" Remdesivir for Treatment of Covid-19 - Final Report