Infectiousness peaks early in Covid-19 patients and antiviral drug remdesivir is not suggested for patients admitted to hospital with Covid-19, researchers have said in two separate studies.
The study published in the journal The Lancet Microbe, said that people infected with coronavirus are most likely to be highly infectious in the first week after symptom onset and there is a need to quickly identify and isolate cases before the virus spreads.
The researchers used meta-analysis to assess 98 studies on Covid-19, SARS and MERS wherein the researchers studied all three diseases was to determine why Covid-19 has spread more rapidly than the earlier diseases.
“This is the first systematic review and meta-analysis that has comprehensively examined and compared viral load and shedding for these three human coronaviruses,” said study lead author Muge Cevik from the University of St. Andrews in the UK. “It provides a clear explanation for why SARS-CoV-2 spreads more efficiently than SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV and is so much more difficult to contain,” Cevik added.
In another study, WHO Guideline Development Group (GDG) panel of international experts pointed out in The BMJ that remdesivir has received worldwide attention as a potentially effective treatment for severe covid-19 and is increasingly used to treat patients in hospital. But its role in clinical practice has remained uncertain, they said citing data from four international randomised trials involving over 7,000 patients hospitalised for covid-19.
After thoroughly reviewing this evidence, the WHO GDG expert panel, which includes experts from around the world including four patients who have had covid-19, concluded that remdesivir has no meaningful effect on mortality or on other important outcomes for patients, such as the need for mechanical ventilation or time to clinical improvement.
The panel acknowledged that the certainty of evidence is low and said the evidence did not prove that remdesivir has no benefit; rather, there is no evidence based on currently available data that it does improve important patient outcomes.