ATLANTA — We’re hearing a lot about vaccines, but treatments to help COVID-19 patients are also a focus of research and testing.
Tests will soon be underway on an inhaled form of a drug that’s showing promise, called Remdesivir.
Remdesivir is used by doctors to treat some of the sickest COVID-19 patients.
Hospitals report success with the drug as it has been shown to lessen the duration of the virus in some patients. Right now it’s given intravenously.
In August, Gilead, the company that makes the drug, is starting trials on an inhaled version.
Christopher Basler, a professor of biomedical sciences at Georgia State University, says Remdesivir works by slowing the growth of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
Basler says the drug is delivered directly to the airway where the virus grows. A nebulizer, which is typically used by asthma patients, delivers the inhaled version of Remdesivir. If it works using this method, it could be made available to COVID-19 patients who are not in the hospital. The key now is what happens in the clinical trials.
Dr. Chirag Patel with Wellstar Health Systems says he thinks it’s an exciting study. He says an inhaled Remdesivir would get the treatment to a broader set of patients. However, Dr. Patel cautions that with drug trials, researchers are throwing a hundred darts at a dart board and hoping for a bullseye.
Cox Media Group
