New drug to help Australian patients fight off COVID-19 comes with 'caveats' | kaubo
Deputy Chief Health Officer Nick Coatsworth said on Saturday that the approval of Remdesivir came with some caveats including that it would not be prescribed to people in the community."The important thing to note about any of these medications, of course, is that none of them as yet are a silver bullet," Dr Coastworth.
"They include a reduction in the length of hospital stay, and a potential reduction in the serious adverse events that coronavirus sufferers can get during their episode of coronavirus disease," he said.Gilead Sciences, the company behind Remdesivir, said an analysis showed its antiviral drug has helped reduce the risk of death in severely ill COVID-19 patients, but cautioned that rigorous clinical trials were needed to confirm the benefit.
Dr Susan Olender from Columbia University Irving Medical Centre said in the Gilead statement that the analysis drew from a real-world setting and served as an important adjunct to clinical trial data even though it is not as vigorous as a randomised controlled trial.Dr Walid Gellad, a professor at University of Pittsburgh’s medical school, called it "a joke" to compare clinical trial data with observational data and conclude anything definitive about mortality.
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