There is no evidence that it has an effect in treating patients with covid-19 and therefore hospitals should not use the Remdesvir, ruled the World Health Organization.
The new guidelines of the WHO, however, are not binding for physicians, as the data that are constantly being added may change the clinical experience on the effectiveness of the drug.
The advice of the WHO committee, published in the British medical journal “British Medical Journal” (BMJ), based mainly on the large international clinical trial Solidarity in more than 7,000 hospitalised patients, in which there were no signs of cure in those given remdesivir.
Recall that remdesivir, which is administered intravenously, was given emergency approval by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in order to grant the President of the USA, Donald Trump, at the time he contracted coronavirus.
The Professor Peter Horby of the Department of Medicine of the University of Oxford told the Guardian that the use of remdesivir - used in more than 50 countries - in the pandemic should be reviewed. It remains unclear, according to Reuters, how the European Union, which has ordered 500,000 doses of remdesivir, worth one billion euros, will react.
Other older and cheaper drugs such as steroid dexamethasone have shown more substantial benefits in patients with severe COVID-19, reducing the risk of death.
