The editorial, written by David Harrington, PhD, professor of biostatistics at Harvard University; Lindsey Baden, MD, assistant professor of infectious disease at Harvard; and Joseph Hogan, Sc.D, professor of public health at Brown University, argues that the trial didn’t account for “variation within and between countries in the standard of care and in the burden of disease in patients who arrive at hospitals.”
The study, called the Solidarity trial, tracked the results of remdesivir in 11,330 patients at 405 hospitals in 30 countries. But without knowing if patients received quality care while in the hospital, it’s impossible to definitively say if remdesivir made a difference or not, the authors wrote.
The FDA approved remdesivir as a treatment for COVID-19 in October, the first and only drug that has been approved to treat the virus. At the end of November, the WHO recommended patients not be given remdesivir to treat COVID-19, saying there is no evidence that the antiviral drug improves patients’ disease severity or mortality rates.
Read the full editorial here.
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