BREAKTHROUGH IN TREATMENT FOR FIGHTING DISEASE: DRUG BOOSTS VIRUS SURVIVAL HOPES

‘Biggest step forward since the crisis began’

- Macer Hall

SEVERELY ill coronavirus patients will be treated with a breakthrough drug that speeds recovery by days.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock confirmed yesterday that the medicine, Remdesivir, has been approved for the NHS following successful trials.

He called it “the biggest step forward in the treatment of coronavirus since the crisis began” and added: “We’ll “keep working across the world to develop the vaccines and the treatments like this that will help us turn the corner.”

Remdesivir, which is already being used in the US and Japan in the fight against Covid-19, was initially developed to treat Ebola in Africa.

It destroys a part of the SARS-CoV-2 virus to stop it reproducing – making it the closest thing the world has to a coronavirus cure. Tests in UK hospitals have showed the injection can speed up recovery time by four days.

Mr Hancock said the drug will initially be given to the most ill patients – from the age of 12 – in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, on a case-by-case basis determined by doctors.

Promising

His announcement came as official data revealed another drop in deaths from the disease. The daily toll was 134, the lowest for six weeks. Meanwhile 471 patients were admitted to hospital with confirmed Covid-19 infections on Sunday, compared with 639 on May 17.

Prof John Newton, the Government’s coronavirus testing supremo, hailed the falling numbers as “good news”.

He added that a “steady although slow decline” in hospital admissions was being “seen all over the country.