According to the press release from National Institutes of Health, the experimental drug remdesivir significantly decreased clinical disease and lungs damage in just 12 hours of post-first treatment in coronavirus-infected monkeys.

This was a small preliminary medical trial, conducted by NIH and needs to be peer-reviewed. The study simulated the experiment being conducted in humans, including hospitalized patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 virus or coronavirus disease. In patients infected with COVID-19, remdesivir works by adding mutations which finally leads to the destruction of the respiratory virus.

The trial was conducted on two groups of 6 rhesus macaques who were purposely infected with SARS-CoV-2 virus. Remdesivir was given to the test group while no treatment was given to the monkeys in the control group. In the test group, the first dose of remdesivir was injected intravenously 12 hours post-infection, and after that every day for the following six days.

The time to the first treatment was noted just before the virus reached its maximum concentration in the lungs of monkeys. After 12-hours of the first treatment, a significant improvement in the symptoms of macaques was observed which continued to improve over the next week.

Only one of the six monkeys showed a mild difficulty in breathing at the end of the test phase compared to all six monkeys in the control or untreated group who showed difficulty in breathing. As compared to the untreated group, a significantly lower level of virus and less lung damage was observed in the test group.

Remdesivir, an anti-viral drug could become a new promising agent for treating patients infected with the coronavirus. In humans, clinical trials have already begun. Also, remdesivir was found to be effective in COVID-19 infected patients participating in a trial in Chicago, US.