Remdesivir for the Treatment of Covid-19 - Final Report.

Abstract (PubMed)

Although several therapeutic agents have been evaluated for the treatment of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19), no antiviral agents have yet been shown to be efficacious. We conducted a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial of intravenous remdesivir in adults who were hospitalized with Covid-19 and had evidence of lower respiratory tract infection. Patients were randomly assigned to receive either remdesivir (200 mg loading dose on day 1, followed by 100 mg daily for up to 9 additional days) or placebo for up to 10 days. The primary outcome was the time to recovery, defined by either discharge from the hospital or hospitalization for infection-control purposes only. A total of 1062 patients underwent randomization (with 541 assigned to remdesivir and 521 to placebo). Those who received remdesivir had a median recovery time of 10 days (95% confidence interval [CI], 9 to 11), as compared with 15 days (95% CI, 13 to 18) in those who received placebo (rate ratio for recovery, 1.29; 95% CI, 1.12 to 1.49; P<0.001). The Kaplan-Meier estimates of mortality were 6.7% with remdesivir and 11.9% with placebo by day 29 (hazard ratio for death, 0.70; 95% CI, 0.47 to 1.04; P=0.07). Remdesivir was superior to placebo in shortening the time to recovery in adults hospitalized with Covid-19 and evidence of lower respiratory tract infection.