The problem with the COVID-19 virus is that there is no known cure. Instead, what doctors can do at the moment is to simply address the problems as they appear, meaning that if the person has a fever, doctors will need to treat the fever. If the patient has a cough, they’ll need to treat the cough.
What’s dangerous is the difficulty in breathing symptoms, in which hospitals might sometimes need to put patients on a ventilator. However, thanks to an experimental drug called remdesivir, it appears to be showing promising signs in dealing with respiratory problems. Patients who took part in the clinical trial of the drug appear to be recovering faster than normal.
Those who took part in the trial had respiratory issues and after being given the experimental drug, were able to leave the hospital less than a week. However, it wasn’t a complete success as two patients part of the trial did die, but it is still promising all the same. The drug was initially developed to fight Ebola but had little success, but it seems that it has found a new life fighting against the COVID-19 virus.
This is not the first time we’re hearing about “old” drugs being repurposed for the coronavirus. Recently, it was found that an arthritis medication was also proving effective, and not too long ago, a drug meant to treat erectile dysfunction also proved promising. Researchers are also looking into a vaccine used to treat tuberculosis as another way to fight the COVID-19 virus.
Note that none of these discoveries are a surefire cure to the disease, but they are at the very least giving doctors alternatives to treat patients who might otherwise not be responding well to current treatments.
Filed in . Read more about Coronavirus, Covid-19, Health and Social Hit. Source: edition.cnn