JOIN USWill continue to use Remdesivir unless ICMR asks us not to, say doctors
For months now, many critical patients in the state have been administered Remdesivir. Their loved ones have somehow arranged for it even when hospitals did not have stock. Days after the WHO declared that the drug is ineffective, the state government is set to discuss the continuance of the drugs in Covid-19 treatment protocol in its next expert committee meeting, but it will continue to procure these drugs until then. So far it has spent Rs 55.66 crore on procuring Remdesivir, Lopinavir and HCQ, three of the four drugs whose efficacy was tested by WHO.
Covid-19 drug procurement details as on October 17 shows Karnataka has so far procured 2,05,000 20 ml vials of Remdesivir at a cost of Rs 51.80 crore, spent Rs 1.67 crore on 7,000 vials of Lopinavir, and Rs 2.18 crore on 2.79 lakh HCQ tablets, all of which were proven to be ineffective by the WHO's Solidarity Trial. The trial showed no reduction in mortality in hospitalised patients after 28 days.
The Solidarity Trial is the world's largest global randomised control trial for Covid-19 therapeutics spanning 30 countries with over 12,000 randomisations. India was the 12th country to join this trial in April 2020. Dr KS Satish, one of the two pulmonologists part of the state Covid-19 therapeutic committee said, "We will continue to use it unless the ICMR asks us not to. Patients would go as far as Chennai to procure Remdesivir or stockpile at home. Now, patients themselves are sending us this trial's findings."
Dr Anoop Amarnath, member of the State Covid-19 Critical Care Support Unit, said, "The ACT trial showed reduction in recovery time with Remdesivir. Our experience on the ground also suggests the same. No improvement has been suggested in ventilated patients. This brings to question the timing of Remdesivir. It has to be given earlier."
Dr Murali Mohan, Pulmonologist, Narayana Health said around 500 patients have been administered the drug at his hospital and although there is no study, anecdotal inputs suggest that the drug does help. "We are all for evidence-based medicine but our experience suggests otherwise."
Dr Satyanarayana Mysore, Pulmonologist, Manipal Hospital, who had treated 1,200 Covid patients in the past four months said, "We find that Remdesivir leads to accelerated viral clearance, less incidence of cytokine storm, and very few who were administered the drug were moved into the ICU.
We are in the process of looking at our own hospital data and back up with figures which we plan to do in the next couple of months. One way to study is to compare patients prior to July 24 when Remdesivir was introduced in Karnataka and after it was introduced in the treatment protocol."