The Department of Health announced today that adults and teenagers with severe COVID-19 will be allowed to be treated with remdesivir if they fit specific criteria.
This makes the drug, which destroys a part of the virus in order to stop it reproducing, the closest thing doctors have to a cure or treatment for the disease.
The criteria for who will get it have not been laid out by the Government but doctors will be expected to decide on a case-by-case basis who is most likely to benefit.
Early trials of remdesivir, which must be injected by a qualified medic, suggest it could speed up people's time to recovery by four days, British officials said.
Although the approval of remdesivir has been welcomed by scientists, it has come more than three weeks after the FDA in the US approved it on May 1, putting the UK weeks behind once again. It was also slower to increase testing capacity.
And Japan's ministry of health approved the drug on May 8. Britain is now following suit in the face of growing scientific evidence.
Remdesivir is expected to be available immediately to patients across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
No comments:
Post a Comment