Coronavirus cure hope: 79-year-old Italian successfully treated with experimental drug

There is hope that the experimental drug remdesivir could cure patients of coronavirus after a 79-year-old Italian man who had tested positive was given the all-clear after treatment.

The broad-spectrum antiviral was developed by US drug firm Gilead for Ebola and was used to treat Scottish nurse Pauline Cafferkey when she suffered a relapse 18 months after being cleared of the disease which she contracted while volunteering in Sierra Leone.

Currently, remdesivir is being tested in five Covid-19 clinical trials including by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) on 13 patients hospitalised after contracting coronavirus on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan.

The first person to test positive with the virus in the US was also treated with drugs and has since fully recovered.

A case report in the New England Journal of Medicine said the man began to feel better within a day of being treated with intravenous remdesivir.

A view of the corridor outside the intensive care unit of the hospital of Brescia, Italy. Photo / AP

On Tuesday evening, the President of Italy's Liguria region Giovanni Toti said the area had seen "the first real case of coronavirus cured", a 79-year-old man who was treated with remdesivir. He is due to return to his home in Lombardy soon.

Bruce Aylward, of the World Health Organisation, said last month: "There's only one drug right now that we think may have real efficacy. And that's remdesivir."

Drug maker Gilead, which distributed the drug on a compassionate use basis to several hundred patients globally, expects to start its own late-stage trials this month.

Remdesivir has so far been proven to inhibit the related virus Mers-CoV - the cause of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (Mers) in animal models. However, a study out last week on three US patients showed mixed results.

There are currently no approved therapies for coronavirus, but many countries have been repurposing anti-virals in the hope they might work against the infection.

Thailand claims to have cured some patients with a combination of the dual HIV antivirals ritonavir-lopinavir and Tamiflu. China has also approved the antiviral favilavir for use in coronavirus.

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Additionally, the anti-malarial chloroquine has shown efficacy in some early lab trials.

The first clinical trial for a vaccine has begun in the US after skipping animal trials.