Covid-19: Remdesivir has “small effect” against death or progression to ventilation, WHO trial finds

Remdesivir has no significant effect on patients with covid-19 who are already being ventilated but has a small effect against death or progression to ventilation among other patients admitted to hospital, the World Health Organization’s Solidarity trial has found.1 This appears to be a change from findings reported in February 2021, when preliminary trial data suggested that remdesivir “had little or no effect on patients admitted to hospital with covid-19.”2 The Solidarity trial recruited over 14 000 patients from 454 hospitals across 35 countries between March 2020 and January 2021, of which over 8000 were allocated 1:1 to remdesivir (10 daily infusions) or control (no drug). The updated results, published in the Lancet, reported that overall 14.5% (602 of 4146) of patients assigned to remdesivir died compared with 15.6% (643 of 4129) assigned to the control group (mortality rate ratio 0.91, 95% confidence interval 0.82 to 1.02, P=0.12).