By: Tayhana Taylor, World News Editor
With the winter season approaching and concerns of a possible COVID-19 spike, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have authorized emergency medical treatment for hospitalized COVID-19 positive patients. The medicine has been approved by the FDA for adults and children for the treatment of COVID-19. Remdesivir, which will be sold under the trade name Veklury, is the first and only authorized drug that will be used to treat COVID-19 patients at this time. Remdesivir is administered in the form of an injection into a vein.
In February, the Adaptive COVID-19 Treatment Trial to test the effectiveness of Remdesivir was conducted in conjunction with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). In an interview with CNBC, Daniel O’Day, CEO of Gilead Sciences, said, “It helped people recover faster, up to a week in severe patients and five days on average, […] prevented people from getting sicker and going on to more oxygen support, […] and it reduced the number of people who died by 70%.” Earlier this year Gilead Sciences had set October as their target month to meet the global demand for the treatment.
Shortly after the drug’s approval, Founder and Director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, Dr. Eric Topol, tweeted “How can Remdesivir get a full @US_FDA approval when there are [sic]such mixed data? Not supportive of this decision at all… Does it work early? Does it work late? Does it work anytime? So much unresolved.” Dr. Topol’s concerns stem from the World Health Organization’s (WHO) earlier reports of a large clinical trial that designated Remdesivir ineffective for treating COVID-19 with little to no impact on the mortality rates of COVID-19 patients.
Now that there is an approved method to treat COVID-19, how much will this drug cost, and who will be able to afford it?
In June, Daniel O’Day stated in an open letter that patients without insurance will be paying approximately $2,340 for a five-day course of treatment. Interestingly, the NIAID trial sometimes had patients taking the drug for ten days. Patients with government insurance may pay $390 per vial, while those with private insurance could possibly pay $520 per vial.
Like most drugs, Remdesivir has side effects: wheezing, fever, an increased heart rate, nausea, and swelling of the lips and face. In addition, the FDA discovered that an increase in liver enzymes was one of the most common side effects found in patients who have taken the drug.
“If I had a case of COVID-19 severe enough to warrant hospitalization, I would take whatever drugs my doctors thought would help me to recover,” said Dr. Cheryl Kozina, an assistant professor of biology at Saint Leo University, “Remdesivir is only administered intravenously in hospital settings, so I would think that patients could be closely monitored for signs of liver damage.”
Even though a drug has been approved to treat COVID-19 in emergency situations, there are currently no vaccines to prevent the virus.
