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BackgroundAlthough several therapeutic agents have been evaluated for the treatment of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19), no antiviral agents have yet been shown to be efficacious.MethodsWe conducted a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial of intravenous remdesivir in adults who were hospitalized with Covid-19 and had evidence of lower respiratory tract infection. Patients were randomly assigned to receive either remdesivir (200 mg loading dose on day 1, followed by 100 mg daily for up to 9 additional days) or placebo for up to 10 days. The primary outcome was the time to recovery, defined by either discharge from the hospital or hospitalization for infection-control purposes only.ResultsA total of 1062 patients underwent randomization (with 541 assigned to remdesivir and 521 to placebo). Those who received remdesivir had a median recovery time of 10 days (95% confidence interval [CI], 9 to 11), as compared with 15 days (95% CI, 13 to 18) among those who received placebo (rate ratio for recovery, 1.29; 95% CI, 1.12 to 1.49; P<0.001, by a log-rank test). In an analysis that used a proportional-odds model with an eight-category ordinal scale, the patients who received remdesivir were found to be more likely than those who received placebo to have clinical improvement at day 15 (odds ratio, 1.5; 95% CI, 1.2 to 1.9, after adjustment for actual disease severity). The Kaplan-Meier estimates of mortality were 6.7% with remdesivir and 11.9% with placebo by day 15 and 11.4% with remdesivir and 15.2% with placebo by day 29 (hazard ratio, 0.73; 95% CI, 0.52 to 1.03). Serious adverse events were reported in 131 of the 532 patients who received remdesivir (24.6%) and in 163 of the 516 patients who received placebo (31.6%).ConclusionsOur data show that remdesivir was superior to placebo in shortening the time to recovery in adults who were hospitalized with Covid-19 and had evidence of lower respiratory tract infection. (Funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and others; ACTT-1 ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT04280705.).

Original publication

DOI

10.1056/nejmoa2007764

Type

Journal article

Journal

The New England journal of medicine

Publication Date

11/2020

Volume

383

Pages

1813 - 1826

Addresses

From the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health (J.H.B., K.M.T., L.E.D., S.N., H.C.L.), and the Infectious Disease Clinical Research Program, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (T.H.B.), Bethesda, the Clinical Monitoring Research Program Directorate, Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, Frederick (T. Bonnett), and Emmes, Rockville (M.G., M.M.) - all in Maryland; Emory University, Atlanta (A.K.M.); Montefiore Medical Center-Albert Einstein College of Medicine (B.S.Z.) and NYU Langone Health and NYC Health and Hospitals-Bellevue (K.D.), New York; University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha (A.C.K., M.G.K.); Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston (E.H.), and University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester (R.W.F.); University of Washington, Seattle (H.Y.C.), and Evergreen Health Medical Center, Kirkland (D.L.C.) - both in Washington; University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco (A.L.), Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles (V.T.), University of California, Irvine, Irvine (L.H.), University of California, San Diego, La Jolla (D.A.S.), and Gilead Sciences, Foster City (A.O.) - all in California; University of Minnesota (S.K.) and University of Minnesota School of Public Health and INSIGHT (J.D.N.), Minneapolis; University of Texas Health San Antonio, University Health System, and the South Texas Veterans Health Care System, San Antonio (T.F.P.), and Baylor College of Medicine, Houston (R.L.A.); Hospital Germans Trias i Pujol and irsiCaixa AIDS Research Institute, Badalona, Spain (R.P.); University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (W.R.S.); Medical School, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens (G.T.); National Center for Infectious Diseases-Tan Tock Seng Hospital-Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine-Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, Singapore, Singapore (D.C.L.); the National Center for Global Health and Medicine Hospital, Tokyo (N.O.); Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul, South Korea (M.O.); Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas y Nutrición Salvador Zubirán, Mexico City (G.M.R.-P.); the Department of Infectious Diseases, Amager Hvidovre Hospital-University of Copenhagen, Hvidovre (T. Benfield), and Rigshospitalet, Department of Infectious Diseases (CHIP) and INSIGHT, Copenhagen (J.L.) - both in Denmark; University Hospital of Cologne, Cologne, Germany (G.F.); Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville (C.B.C.); and University College London, MRC Clinical Trials Unit at UCL and INSIGHT, London (A.G.B., S.P.).

Keywords

ACTT-1 Study Group Members, Humans, Pneumonia, Viral, Coronavirus Infections, Alanine, Adenosine Monophosphate, Antiviral Agents, Respiration, Artificial, Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation, Oxygen Inhalation Therapy, Double-Blind Method, Time Factors, Adult, Aged, Middle Aged, Female, Male, Young Adult, Kaplan-Meier Estimate, Pandemics, Administration, Intravenous, Betacoronavirus, COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2