Baylor Scott & White releases results of study on the use of Remdesivir to treat COVID-19 patients

DALLAS - Baylor Scott & White is reporting some good news about treatment for COVID-19 patients.

The hospital released some results of a study on the use of Remdesivir.

Baylor Scott & White Health is one of 180 hospitals participating in a worldwide Gilead Sciences study of its antiviral drug Remdesivir to treat people who are severely hospitalized with COVID-19.

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“What’s a patient come to a hospital for? They want to live longer, they want to live better, and they want to get better,” said Dr. Robert Gottlieb, who is a cardiologist at Baylor Scott & White.

And hospital officials said the results show Remdesivir is doing just that, consistently shortening recovery time and saving lives.

“And now we have shown that there’s a very strong suggestion of survival benefit,” Gottlieb said. “And that Remdesivir decreased your odds of passing away from COVID-19 by about 62 percent.”

Dr. Gottlieb said Remdesivir is challenging to make, there’s a limited supply, and it takes time to ramp up production.

It’s not the best of news during a pandemic, but he added that studies show patients need only half the dose of what was originally thought.

“Does five days of Remdesivir verses 10 days of Remdesivir make a difference or are they both helpful?” Dr. Gottlieb said. “We showed that five days was as good as 10 days.”

Which means you can treat nearly twice as many patients with the same supply.

The study did not take into account patients on breathing tubes or ventilators, but Baylor officials said the findings certainly provide hope.

“Because now we know that we have therapies that we can offer that can help our patients,” Dr. Gottlieb added.

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