Remdesivir

WHY IN NEWS?

The United States Food and Drug Authority (USFDA) has allowed emergency use of the antiviral drug Remdesivir for treatment of severely ill COVID-19 patients.

ABOUT REMDESIVIR

• Remdesivir is a broad-spectrum antiviral medicine that has got significant public attention for its possible benefits in the treatment of COVID-19.
• It is a nucleoside analogue drug developed by a US-based biopharmaceutical firm to fight against Ebola.
• Both lab and animal studies have shown that remdesivir is effective against SARS and MERS virus. This is significant because both SARS and MERS are coronaviruses and belong to the same family as SARS-CoV-2 - the coronavirus responsible for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
• It prevents the replication of RNA of the virus thus, effectively preventing the virus from creating copies of itself.