The Progress in a Search for the Vaccine for COVID-19 and a Current Frontrunner
By Rohin Buch
Health Head
Ever since COVID-19 was officially declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization on March 11th, the race to develop a vaccine has been in effect. One of the frontrunners for the vaccine for the novel coronavirus, as it stands today, is a drug made by the biopharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences and is called remdesivir (see image of chemical structure). As was shown in a study published in the New England Medical Journal, remdesivir is an “inhibitor of the viral RNA-dependent, RNA polymerase with inhibitory activity against SARS-CoV and the Middle East respiratory syndrome(MERS-CoV)”. In simpler terms, as a drug, it fights against one of the main viral components which allows for its rapid proliferation. So, besides slowing down the rate of spread of COVID-19 in the human body, it also effectively improves the condition of many people on whom it has been tested.
When this drug was tested on primates who had been injected with MERS-CoV, another coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), it resulted in a reduction of the levels of the virus in their lungs and reduced lung damage.
The trial period for remdesivir on COVID-19 patients, as the study states, began on February 21 and ended on April 19. During this trial period, also called Adaptive COVID-19 Treatment Trial or ACTT-1, the drug was tested in 60 different trial sites all over the world, in countries such as the United States, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Greece, Germany, Korea, Mexico, Spain, Japan, and Singapore. The results of the study showed that remdesivir led to a decreased recovery time in people given the drug and as such boosted its status on the world stage (see chart of recovery times).
After the study was reviewed by the nation’s top medical professionals and leaders, it was announced earlier this month that the FDA had issued an “emergency use authorization” for remdesivir to be used as a treatment for the sickest COVID-19 patients. Another interesting fact to note is that remdesivir is authorized to treat COVID-19 in Japan, unlike the US, who has only authorized its use in emergencies. Further research and testing by Gilead Science have also shown that a “five-day course of the antiviral drug remdesivir sped recovery in moderately ill patients with pneumonia from COVID-19”. Besides this positive response to remdesivir, there are also negative side effects such as nausea, diarrhea, and headaches.
In conclusion, the search for a vaccine has been going strong for the last many months after the declaration of a world pandemic by the WHO. One frontrunner in this search has been a drug previously tested as a potential treatment for Ebola, but now being used to improve the conditions of coronavirus patients worldwide, called remdesivir. Like all of the potential vaccines at the moment, the drug has its side effects and as such, the search for a vaccine will continue until one is found whose side effects are negligible. Then, the world will rejoice.
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