The experimental coronavirus treatment remdesivir has failed in its first randomized clinical trial, inadvertently released results showed on Thursday, dampening expectations for the closely watched drug.
A draft summary went online briefly on the WHO Web site and was first reported by the Financial Times and health news Web site Stat, which posted a screenshot.
However, Gilead Sciences, the company behind the medicine, disputed how the now-deleted post had characterized the findings, saying that the data showed a “potential benefit.”
Photo: AFP
The Chinese trial involved 237 patients, with 158 on the drug and 79 in a control group, the summary said, adding that remdesivir was stopped early in 18 patients because of side effects.
The authors said that remdesivir was “not associated with a difference in time to clinical improvement” compared with the control.
After a month, 13.9 percent of the patients on remdesivir had died, compared with 12.8 percent of those in the control group. The difference is not statistically significant.
The WHO told the Financial Times that the draft is undergoing peer review and was published early in error.
“We believe the post included inappropriate characterizations of the study,” a Gilead spokesman told reporters, adding that it was terminated early due to low enrollment and was therefore not statistically meaningful.
“As such, the study results are inconclusive, though trends in the data suggest a potential benefit for remdesivir, particularly among patients treated early in disease,” the spokesman said.
The study does not represent the final word on the matter, and there are several large-scale trials in advanced stages that should soon provide a clearer picture.
Remdesivir, which is administered intravenously, was among the first drugs suggested as a treatment for the novel coronavirus and as such has great hopes riding on it.
Last week, Stat reported that it had shown significant efficacy at a Chicago hospital where patients who are part of one of the major trials are being treated.
The US National Institutes of Health also reported it that had proven effective in a small experiment on monkeys.
Remdesivir, which previously failed in trials against Ebola, belongs to a class of drugs that act on the virus directly — as opposed to controlling the abnormal and often lethal autoimmune response it causes. It mimics one of the four building blocks of RNA and DNA, and gets absorbed into the virus’ genome, which in turn stops the pathogen from replicating.
Anti-malarial drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine have also been widely used on COVID-19 on a so-called “compassionate basis” pending results from large trials, with early studies decidedly mixed.
Other therapies that are being studied include collecting antibodies from COVID-19 survivors and injecting them in patients, or harvesting antibodies from genetically engineered mice that were deliberately infected.
Separately in France, new research shows that nicotine could protect people from contracting COVID-19.
The findings came after researchers at a top Paris hospital examined 343 COVID-19 patients, as well as 139 people with the illness who had milder symptoms.
They found that a low number of them smoked, compared with smoking rates of about 35 percent in France’s general population.
“Among these patients, only 5 percent were smokers,” said Zahir Amoura, the study’s coauthor and a professor of internal medicine.
The research echoed similar findings published in the New England Journal of Medicine last month suggesting that 12.6 percent of 1,000 people infected in China were smokers.
That was a much lower figure than the number of regular smokers in China’s general population, about 26 percent, WHO data showed.
The theory is that nicotine could adhere to cell receptors, therefore blocking the novel coronavirus from entering cells and spreading in the body, said neurobiologist Jean-Pierre Changeux from France’s Pasteur Institute, who also coauthored the study.
The researchers are awaiting approval from health authorities to carry out further clinical trials.
The researchers are looking into whether nicotine could help to prevent “cytokine storms,” a rapid overreaction of the immune system that scientists think could play a key role in fatal COVID-19 cases.
However, with further research needed, experts are not encouraging people to pick up smoking or use nicotine patches as a protective measure against the virus.
“We must not forget the harmful effects of nicotine,” French Director-General for Health Jerome Salomon said.
“Those who do not smoke should absolutely not use nicotine substitutes,” which cause side effects and addiction, he said.
Nauru has started selling passports to fund climate action, but is so far struggling to attract new citizens to the low-lying, largely barren island in the Pacific Ocean. Nauru, one of the world’s smallest nations, has a novel plan to fund its fight against climate change by selling so-called “Golden Passports.” Selling for US$105,000 each, Nauru plans to drum up more than US$5 million in the first year of the “climate resilience citizenship” program. Almost six months after the scheme opened in February, Nauru has so far approved just six applications — covering two families and four individuals. Despite the slow start —
‘THEY KILLED HOPE’: Four presidential candidates were killed in the 1980s and 1990s, and Miguel Uribe’s mother died during a police raid to free her from Pablo Escobar Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe has died two months after being shot at a campaign rally, his family said on Monday, as the attack rekindled fears of a return to the nation’s violent past. The 39-year-old conservative senator, a grandson of former Colombian president Julio Cesar Turbay (1978-1982), was shot in the head and leg on June 7 at a rally in the capital, Bogota, by a suspected 15-year-old hitman. Despite signs of progress in the past few weeks, his doctors on Saturday announced he had a new brain hemorrhage. “To break up a family is the most horrific act of violence that
North Korean troops have started removing propaganda loudspeakers used to blare unsettling noises along the border, South Korea’s military said on Saturday, days after Seoul’s new administration dismantled ones on its side of the frontier. The two countries had already halted propaganda broadcasts along the demilitarized zone, Seoul’s military said in June after the election of South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, who is seeking to ease tensions with Pyongyang. The South Korean Ministry of National Defense on Monday last week said it had begun removing loudspeakers from its side of the border as “a practical measure aimed at helping ease
HISTORIC: After the arrest of Kim Keon-hee on financial and political funding charges, the country has for the first time a former president and former first lady behind bars South Korean prosecutors yesterday raided the headquarters of the former party of jailed former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol to gather evidence in an election meddling case against his wife, a day after she was arrested on corruption and other charges. Former first lady Kim Keon-hee was arrested late on Tuesday on a range of charges including stock manipulation and corruption, prosecutors said. Her arrest came hours after the Seoul Central District Court reviewed prosecutors’ request for an arrest warrant against the 52-year-old. The court granted the warrant, citing the risk of tampering with evidence, after prosecutors submitted an 848-page opinion laying out
RSS