CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Remdesivir, the antiviral drug recently approved by the FDA as an emergency treatment for some coronavirus patients, is on its way to Corpus Christi.
In a press release sent out Wednesday morning, the state announced it will send two cases of the drug to two local hospitals, expanding healthcare workers' arsenal in treating COVID-19.
While healthcare workers at specific hospitals will decide how to use their supply of remdesivir, its use is currently being limited to coronavirus patients "hospitalized with severe disease, such as those in intensive care," the release states.
The two cases for Corpus Christi follow the distribution of an initial 30 across Texas earlier this month.
Remdesivir was the first drug shown to be effective in treating those with coronavirus symptoms earlier this year, having shortened the recovery time for hospitalized patients by an average of 31 percent in a government-sponsored study. Twenty San Antonio patients were part of that trial.
Now, researchers in Texas are working to further test the drug, to see if it could be even more effective in the ongoing COVID-19 fight.