You might not believe it but the US is one of the leading countries in the world when it comes to medical expertise.

Reader Bao: Wait…so drinking bleach will cure Covid-19?

Wha-wait, how did you even come to that conclusion?

Reader Bao: Trump said it.

Well, he’s also admitted, several times, that he’s not a doctor. Not that it has stopped people from listening to him.

Reader Bao: True that.

Instead, I’m talking about Remdesivir, the drug whose name was mispronounced by POTUS so many times it’s not funny.

Data Showed The Drug Remdesivir Is Effective Against Covid-19

Right now, doctors all around the world can only helplessly wring their hands as they see their patients fade away.

There’s no known vaccine or medicine that can help Covid-19 patients in serious conditions recover.

But now, a US government clinical trial might’ve revealed one such magic cure that doctors have been waiting for.

Patients Who Took The Drug Had A 31% Quicker Recovery Time

According to Dr Anthony Fauci, the top infectious specialist in the US, data from a government clinical trial showed that patients who were given remdesivir had a 31% faster recovery time compared to those who didn’t take it.

He added that if patients were given the drug earlier in the course of their illness, it will work even better.

The drug will be made the “standard care” in the US and the government is working with the company who produced the drug, Gilead, to see how it can be made available to the masses.

Currently, there is another trial ongoing where they compare the results of patients who take a placebo (an imitation of the drug) vs ones who took the real thing.

The results, they say, will determine if remdesivir really works and it will be out by mid-May.

It Was Originally Developed For Ebola

Remdesivir wasn’t originally developed for Covid-19.

It was actually developed by Gilead as a possible treatment for Ebola but failed.

The reason why they’re using it this time against Covid-19 is that it is designed to disable the mechanism which viruses use to duplicate themselves and overwhelm their hosts’ bodies.

Also, just as the US government clinical trial produced positive results, researchers in China concluded that remdesivir “failed to improve patients’ condition or reduce the pathogen’s presence in the bloodstream”.

Gilead has denied the results, saying that the drug wasn’t effective because the trial has been terminated early.

They are also studying how the drug will affect people with less severe Covid-19 and results will be out in May 2020.

Meanwhile, Japan is gearing up to approve the use of Remdesivir for Covid-19 patients in May.