'Compelling' drug trial finds decreasing hospitalization, mortality of COVID-19 patients
This is 'very clinically significant,' says Dr. Barry Zingman explaining the promising results of Gilead's remdesivir trials to treat coronavirus patients
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New York infectious disesase specialist Dr. Barry Zingman told “America’s Newsroom” Monday that an ongoing trial of experimental antiviral drug remdesivir at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx has produced some "very compelling" information about the treatment of COVID-19.
On Friday President Trump announced that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had authorized the emergency use of remdesivir to treat coronavirus patients after early results of a clinical study by the National Institutes of Health indicated the drug helps speed recovery.
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Zingman said Monday that the Montefiore study "is probably the largest trial that will ever be done … with over 1,000 people in it, so that gives us great confidence that what we’re finding is real and will continue.”
"The decrease in hospitalization, the [number of] days of hospitalization, as well as the decrease in mortality is very clinically significant to people with COVID-19 and their families, and it is quite convincing," he added. “We are still in the middle of analyzing the data, but we expect that these results will persist as we get more and more data in."
Zingman said demand for remdesivir “is huge,” and pointed out that access to the drug is "relatively limited."
“One [way to access it] is through clinical trials and there are various clinical trials going on throughout the United States and around the world,” Zingman explained. “Another is expanded access. Another is the emergency use authorization.”
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Zingman told host Ed Henry he expects production of the drug “to be ramping up over the next week or two.”
“My understanding is that as Gilead is able to produce more and more drug," he said, "they will be sending more and more drug out to the federal government, to hospitals around the world."
Fox News’ James Rogers, Chris Ciaccia and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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