Remdesivir in Iceland Next Week

A shipment of the drug Remdesivir is expected in Iceland within a week, Morgunblaðið reports. The US Food and Drug Administration has allowed the emergency use of the drug, which appears to shorten the recovery time of hospitalized COVID-19 patients.

Magnús Gottfreðsson, infectious disease specialist at Landspítali National University Hospital, states that the drug will be used to treat COVID-19 patients in Iceland who are seriously ill. He is very pleased that Remdesivir will be available in Iceland. “This is great news,” he states.

“This is a solution we’ll use when and if there will be other serious cases,” he tells mbl.is. He hopes that won’t be the case, but doctors want to be prepared, should more COVID-19 patients require intensive care or a ventilator.

A study of 1,063 patients, some of whom received a placebo, in hospitals around the world showed that the drug shortened the recovery time by 31 percent – from 15 to 11 days, the BBC reports. 

The experimental drug was originally developed by Gilead Sciences to treat Ebola, which it did not cure.

The Gilead website cautions that “Remdesivir is an experimental medicine that does not have established safety or efficacy for the treatment of any condition.”