Effect of Remdesivir in COVID-19 in Terms of Hospital Discharge and Mortality Benefits

Background & Objective: There is no first line antiviral treatment for Corona Virus Disease 2019 (Covid-19). Remdesivir is used as antiviral drug for covid 19 in different parts of world with variable results.The objective of our study was to assess the effect of Remdesivir in Covid-19, in terms of time to discharge from hospital and mortality rate benefit. Methods: An interventional, single-center study conducted at Corona Wards of DHQ University teaching hospital Gujranwala. Two categories were made using simple random sampling technique. First category was marked 'Remdesivir group', to whom after Informed Consent Injection Remdesivir (200 mg on the principal day followed by 100 mg every day for the following four days) was given. Second category was the'Control group'; they were not given the injection Remdesivir. Total 248 patients were selected for the study. The Remdesivir category included 124 patients and the Control category involved 124 patients. Collected data was analyzed using SPSS 23.0. All baseline characters and variables in history were calculated as Mean and standard deviations for quantitative variables and as percentages for frequencies of qualitative variables. Univariate comparison for binary variables was performed with Chi-Square test. A p-value of <0.05 was considered as significant. Results: In the Remdesivir category 23 (18.5%) had mild illness, 50 (40.3%) had moderate illness and 51 (41.2%) patients had severe illness. In the Control category 26 (20.9%) had mild illness, and 50 (40.3%) had moderate illness and 48(38.8%) patients had severe illness. The median hospital stay days in Remdesivir category was 13 (95% CI: 12 - 15) and total death rate was 36.44%. The median hospital stay days in Control category was 11 (95% CI: 10 - 12) and the death rate was 31.35%. p- value .40. Conclusion: The information showed that Remdesivir was not better than the standard of care treatment in shortening the hospital stay days in patients with proven Covid-19. No Mortality benefit was seen with Remdesivir treatment.