What remdesivir means for ending the coronavirus: Yahoo News Explains

As we enter another month battling the coronavirus pandemic, billions of people around the world are yearning for a return to normalcy. However, even as the spread of the virus has slowed in some areas, the effort to totally eliminate the disease still faces severe headwinds. While widespread testing continues to lag and a viable vaccine remains on the distant horizon, a promising new antiviral drug, remdesivir, shows signs of being an effective treatment for some COVID-19 patients. Yahoo News Medical Contributor Dr. Kavita Patel explains what you need to know about ending the coronavirus pandemic

Video transcript

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KAVITA PATEL: So we've entered into a new month, one where we're finding ourselves wondering, when could it be safe to leave our homes? And when can we relax social distancing, as states around the country are doing that?

There are three areas that everybody is really concerned with. The first is testing. Public health opinion is that we don't have enough tests today, but that hopefully over the next several weeks to months we will have enough testing for the fall.

- You're confident you can surpass five million tests per day?

DONALD TRUMP: Well we're going to be there very soon.

KAVITA PATEL: Second issue of importance is vaccine development, but that is still unlikely to happen anytime soon.

ANDREW CUOMO: When Dr. Fauci says how long until a vaccine, he says 12 months to 18 months.

KAVITA PATEL: And then, finally, treatment options. On that front, we actually do have some very recent good news.

DAVID MUIR: New findings from the NIH on the antiviral drug remdesivir.

- Remdesivir.

- Remdesivir. Preliminary data shows that patients who receive it had a 31% faster recovery time.

KAVITA PATEL: So the principal finding was that this drug, remdesivir, shortened the length of stay for hospitalized patients from 15 to 11 days. While that might not sound like a lot, anything that we can do to speed up recovery can have a huge impact.

ANTHONY FAUCI: What it has proven is that a drug can block this virus.

KAVITA PATEL: Remdesivir works by preventing the replication of the actual coronavirus as it attaches to what we call epithelial cells. And you see those little crowns and red spikes on those pictures of the virus that are probably in all of our heads? It's the treatment that tries to prevent those spikes from reproducing the virus itself.

This raises a lot of questions in the research community about what's next. Number one, if it's got such a positive signal or positive effect, should we be using it with the dozens of other therapies that are also in clinical trial? And the answer is absolutely yes, that this will be probably a foundational drug for other drugs to be tried in combination.

The next question that everybody should be asking is, will there be enough of this drug so that if every American needs, it that it's available? There has already been preparation underway, that the manufacturer has considered to try to have as many as a million doses of this drug. But beyond that, it can take anywhere from six months or longer to manufacture. So there could be an issue with access.

Another point that I emphasize is that this is a drug that was used on hospitalized patients. Candidly, this is a drug that's administered through the IV and you have to monitor patients pretty closely. So it's hard to imagine that this particular drug would be immediately available to be studied in the outpatient setting, but it is something that people are considering.

Meanwhile, Americans are going to have to continue social distancing, hand hygiene, and doing whatever we can to minimize the spread of this virus. So that probably remains our best prevention over everything.