(LONDON TELEGRAPH) Hopes that the experimental drug remdesivir could cure patients of coronavirus were raised after a 79-year-old Italian man who had tested positive was given the all-clear following treatment.
The broad-spectrum antiviral was developed by US drug firm Gilead for Ebola and was used to treat the Scottish nurse Pauline Cafferkey when she suffered a relapse 18 months after being cleared of the disease which she contracted while volunteering in Sierra Leone.
Currently remdesivir is being tested in five Covid-19 clinical trials including by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) on 13 patients hospitalised after contracting coronavirus on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan.
