Md Azizul Islam¹, Mohammad Azizur Rahman², Mohammad Alimur Reza³, Mohammad Jamil A Choudhury³, KM Ashik Elahi³, Mamun Al Mahtab⁴* and Sheikh Mohammad Fazle Akbar⁵

¹Directorate General of Medical Services, Bangladesh Armed Forces, Dhaka, Bangladesh
²Department of Medicine, Combined Military Hospital, Dhaka, Bangladesh
³Medical Affairs, Beximco Pharmaceuticals Ltd., Dhaka, Bangladesh
⁴Department of Hepatology, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, Dhaka, Bangladesh
⁵Department of Gastroenterology and Metabology, Ehime University Graduate School of Medicine, Ehime, Japan

*Corresponding Author: Mamun Al Mahtab, Department of Hepatology, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Received: July 10, 2021; Published: August 07, 2021

Abstract

Background: Remdesivir is a broad-spectrum antiviral agent that is the first and only available therapeutic drug that has been approved by several regulatory bodies for clinical use in the management of patients with severe COVID-19. Aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical outcome and safety of using Remdesivir in Bangladeshi hospitalized patients with severe COVID-19.

Methods: We conducted a randomized, controlled, open level trial of intravenous Remdesivir in adult patients who are hospitalized with Covid-19. Patients were randomly assigned to receive standard of care therapy together with Remdesivir 200 mg on day 1 followed by Remdesivir 100 mg for next 4 days or standard of care therapy only. The primary clinical endpoint was duration of hospitalization, defined by either discharge from the hospital or hospitalization for infection control purposes only.

Results: A total of 60 patients were enrolled in the study after screening. Mean age of all the patients was 53.2 ± 12.7 and 83.3% were male. Results indicated that patients in the Remdesivir group had significantly shorter mean duration of hospitalization than control group (mean ± SD 7.3 ± 2.4, as compared to 10.8 ± 6.1; p-value: 0.013). In cox proportional hazard regression comparing time to clinical improvement (TTCI), we found statistically significant difference on day 11 (HR - 1.88; 95% CI - 1.03 - 3.36; p-value - 0.038) and day 14 (HR - 2.15; 95% CI - 1.22 - 3.81; p-value - 0.008) between two groups. There was no mortality or serious adverse events among all the patients in both groups.

Conclusion: Remdesivir was proved to be beneficial to shorten the duration of hospitalization and time to clinical improvement in adult patients requiring supplemental oxygen therapy. A randomized placebo controlled clinical trial with larger sample size appears to be warranted to validate these important findings.

Keywords: COVID-19; Remdesivir; SARS-CoV-2

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Citation

Citation: Mamun Al Mahtab., et al. “Clinical Outcome of Using Remdesivir in Bangladeshi Hospitalized Patients with Severe Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19)”.Acta Scientific Medical Sciences 5.9 (2021): 18-24.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2021 Mamun Al Mahtab., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.