Abstract

Background: Remdesivir is the first treatment for COVID-19 to receive FDA approval. On Oc-tober 22. 2020, the antiviral drug Remdesivir was approved to treat COVID-19 patients requiring hospitalization. Objectives of the study: To compare the effect of timing of Remdesivir administration on the duration of hospitalization and clinical outcome of hospi-talized patients with severe COVID-19 in Imam Al-Hussain medical city, those who re-ceived Remdesivir early; in the first week, with others who re-ceived it in the second week of the onset of the symptoms.Patients and methods: A retro-spective study was done in Imam al-Hussain medical city in Karbala province. The data was collected from 139 pa-tients' registry (84 male&54 female) with severe COVID-19 infection who admitted to the isolation wards, 68(48.6%) re-ceived Remdesivir in the first week, and 71(51.1%) received it in the second week from the onset of symptoms. A compari-son was made between the two groups regarding the clinical outcome and duration of hospi-talization.Result: During the first week from the onset of the symp-toms, about 48.9% of patients with severe infection received Remdesivir, 95.6% of them improved, and 4.4% died. The median time of recovery was six days. About 51.1% received Remdesivir during the second week, 84.5% improved, and 15.5% died. The median time of recovery was 8.5 days.Conclusions: The case fatality rate was lower in patients who received Remdesivir during the first week from the onset of symptoms than patients who received treatment in the sec-ond week. Patients in the first group recovered substantially faster than those in the second one.

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The article was added to IASJ on 2023-10-16

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