topic Re: Some good news! in Community Chat

Some good news!

suzyQ3 — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 21:58:48 GMT

I just read on Huffpost that there is an drug proved to be an effective treatment for Covid. It's actually one that I've posted about before: remdesivir. The government is working to get it available as soon as possible.

"“What it has proven is that a drug can block this virus,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government’s top infectious-disease expert. “This will be the standard of care.”

"Stocks surged around the world on the news, with the Dow Jones Industrial average climbing more than 550 points, or over 2%, in the afternoon."

"Biotech company Gilead Sciences and the U.S. government reported that in a major study, remdesivir shortened the time it takes for COVID-19 patients to recover by four days on average —from 15 days to 11. Also, a trend toward fewer deaths was seen among those on the drug, Fauci said.

The study was run by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and involved 1,063 hospitalized coronavirus patients around the world."

Re: Some good news!

tansy — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 22:00:45 GMT

I saw coverage of this on MSNBC this afternoon. Promising news indeed!

Re: Some good news!

millieshops — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 22:05:14 GMT

@suzyQ3 I saw that report a few hours ago. Read Fauci and the analysts . Seems the good news has 2 parts - one is that there was actually a decent sized test group with a placebo group whereas so many other clinicals weren't really useful - too few patients or no placebo group.

Nice to hear something good for a change. Hope it can save lives and make re-opening the economy successfully an easier task.

Re: Some good news!

Dinaki — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 22:05:31 GMT

Indeed suzyQ3, I also read something similar that in Greece (my country) will admister the drug after FDA approves it in America.

Re: Some good news!

JaneMarple — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 22:09:29 GMT

APRIL 29, 2020

BREAKING NEWS

FDA plans to OK emergency use of coronavirus drug that may fast-track recovery: report

The FDA plans to approve emergency use of the drug remdesivir on coronavirus patients, as researchers work to find out whether the medication can speed up recoveries, The New York Times reported Wednesday.
Read the Latest

Re: Some good news!

Snowpuppy — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 22:18:29 GMT

Listening to Dr. Gottlieb this morning, well maybe we can churn out 1M doses by this fall/winter.

We need 10's of millions doses available nationwide to be effective. His words.

No word on the expected cost per dose. Which I'm sure will be astronomical.

Re: Some good news!

on the bay — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 22:22:26 GMT

I did read about this drug several weeks ago. It's good they are finding more promising results from more patients.

Re: Some good news!

Drythe — Thu, 30 Apr 2020 03:04:01 GMT

@suzyQ3

Good news, caution is sends me off to check who owns the company, patent, manufacturing...

*** Caution is NOT naysaying, it’s just Caution

-Thanks for posting-

Re: Some good news!

stuyvesant — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 22:23:44 GMT

I believe Dr. Fauci made his statement from the Oval Office.

i'll wait a bit and hope for the best.

Re: Some good news!

suzyQ3 — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 22:26:19 GMT

@Drythe wrote:
@suzyQ3

Good news, caution is sending me off to check who owns the company, patent, manufacturing...

Gilead, I believe, @Drythe

Re: Some good news!

KingstonsMom — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 22:30:08 GMT

Isn't this the drug developed to fight ebola?

Re: Some good news!

on the bay — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 22:34:50 GMT

Reports did say that over 10% had side effects of nausea and or acute respiratory failure-yikes. I wonder why.

Re: Some good news!

dimin — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 22:40:47 GMT

Yes, it's the drug made for Ebola that didn't work. It's a starting point. I don't know what news network said it reduced recovery time from 14 days to 11. Fauci said that means the drug is working.

Re: Some good news!

on the bay — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 22:47:06 GMT

I don't in any way claim to understand this but reading this it makes me think all over again,

aren't scientists and researchers amazing?!

And one man who was given remdesivir, said he was feeling pretty bad (in the hospital) so said why not give it a try. The next morning he felt he could breathe, said it still hurt but he could breathe.

From Science Daily. com

We obtained almost identical results as we reported previously with MERS, so we see that remdesivir is a very potent inhibitor for coronavirus polymerases."

Götte's new paper demonstrates how remdesivir, developed in 2014 to fight the Ebola epidemic, works in detail. He likens the polymerase to the engine of the virus, responsible for synthesizing the virus' genome.

"If you target the polymerase, the virus cannot spread, so it's a very logical target for treatment," Götte said.

The lab's work shows how remdesivir tricks the virus by mimicking its building blocks.

Re: Some good news!

suzyQ3 — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 22:49:48 GMT

@on the bay wrote:
Reports did say that over 10% had side effects of nausea and or acute respiratory failure-yikes. I wonder why.

@on the bay, there are some problems. This from Politico:

PLEASE READ:

"The data shows that remdesivir has a clear-cut, significant positive effect in diminishing the time to recover," Fauci told reporters hours after Gilead said promising data was incoming from NIAID's sweeping trial, which involved 1,063 patients.

The vaccine expert cautioned that the drug was not a complete "knockout" in the study — the first randomized clinical trial to deliver results on a potential coronavirus drug. But he said the findings are significant because "what it has proven is that a drug can block this virus."

Trial participants who received remdesivir recovered in an average of 11 days compared with 15 days for patients in the control group, who received a placebo. Eight percent of remdesivir patients died during the trial versus 11 percent in the placebo group.

The death rate is just slightly lower in the remdesivir group, but more data remains to be analyzed, Fauci said. But the scientist, who has led NIAID since 1984, said the news reminded him of the day 34 years ago when modest results for the drug AZT signaled the first potential weapon against HIV.

"That was not the end game, because building on that every year after we did better and better, we had better drugs of the same type, and we had drugs against different targets," Fauci said.

AZT, or azidothymidine, was originally developed as a cancer drug. In March 1987, it won FDA approval — in record time — for use against HIV, at a time when infection often led to a quick and painful death.

The medicine came with rough side effects, and questions about whether it actually extended life. It took another decade before scientists developed the combination antiretroviral drugs that transformed HIV into a chronic disease.

Scientists around the world have been racing to find coronavirus treatments, but no drug has been definitively proven effective.

Other early data for remdesivir have been mixed, including a pair of studies whose results were released hours ahead of the NIAID findings.

Gilead released its own study results this morning suggesting that severely ill patients receiving five days of remdesivir fared just as well as patients receiving a 10-day dosing regimen. More than half of both dosing groups were discharged from the hospital within two weeks of beginning their medication.

Eight percent of people in the five-day group died while 11 percent in the 10-day group died. But another 10 percent in the longer dosing arm had to discontinue treatment because of serious side effects, and the study lacked a control group.

Gilead said the data also suggests that people who received remdesivir early in their infection seemed to fare better than those that received it later. The study is not a traditional trial with a placebo arm to compare against remdesivir for effectiveness, earning Gilead some criticism from policy experts over sharing the news alongside the NIAID results.

"Piggybacking the severe trial release on [the NIAID study] is the part which is unjustifiable," said Peter Bach, director of Memorial Sloan-Kettering's Center for Health Policy and Outcomes. Calling Gilead's results positive even though they came from a trial without a control group "has no basis in scientific inquiry," he added.

The Lancet medical journal responded to Gilead's news this morning by rushing to publish the inconclusive results from a Chinese trial accidentally leaked last week by the World Health Organization.

Re: Some good news!

suzyQ3 — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 22:51:07 GMT

I should have done more research. Should I ask that this thread be deleted?

Re: Some good news!

Porcelain — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 22:58:08 GMT

@suzyQ3 You could edit the initial post and put in what you want. Could even change the headline if you wanted, maybe. But I don't think there's anything wrong with any of it. Not that you asked me in particular.

Re: Some good news!

stuyvesant — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 22:58:54 GMT

@suzyQ3 wrote:
I should have done more research. Should I ask that this thread be deleted?

No, don't do that. The news made you feel better. It's a new good thing to focus on. So the news accomplished that.

And wouldn't it be wonderful it it did way better in further trials than it has so far?

Poor Dr. Fauci

Re: Some good news!

on the bay — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 23:08:57 GMT

@suzyQ3 -

No, I think it is informative and hopeful.

And I just heard about maybe the first doses of a vaccine possible by Sept- from NY Times (not sure how reliable that is? I don't usually read it)

"In Race for a Coronavirus Vaccine, an Oxford Group Leaps Ahead

As scientists at the Jenner Institute prepare for mass clinical trials, new tests show their vaccine to be effective in monkeys."

Re: Some good news!

Anonymous032819 — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 23:15:36 GMT

@on the bay wrote:
@suzyQ3 -
No, I think it is informative and hopeful.
And I just heard about maybe the first doses of a vaccine possible by Sept- from NY Times (not sure how reliable that is? I don't usually read it)
"In Race for a Coronavirus Vaccine, an Oxford Group Leaps Ahead
As scientists at the Jenner Institute prepare for mass clinical trials, new tests show their vaccine to be effective in monkeys."

That's what I saw on my FB page last night, but I couldn't remember who published the article.

I'm cautiously optimistic that this vaccine will work!

I'm keeping my fingers, eyes, arms and legs crossed that this vaccine will work.

Oh, please, please, please let it work!

Pretty, pretty, pretty please, with a cherry on top?