79-Year-Old Italian Man Successfully Treated With Experimental Drug
20th March 2020
The broad-spectrum antiviral was developed by US drug firm Gilead for Ebola and was used to treat the Scottish nurse Pauline Cafferkey when she suffered a relapse 18 months after being cleared of the disease which she contracted while volunteering in Sierra Leone.
Currently remdesivir is being tested in five Covid-19 clinical trials including by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) on 13 patients hospitalised after contracting coronavirus on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan.
The first person to test positive with the virus in the US was also treated with drug and has since fully recovered.