With sights on the US-based COVID-19 vaccine by Pfizer-BioNTech and a Russian-based creation with near 100 percent effectiveness, researchers from across the globe are eager to release their findings of what may help combat the coronavirus disease.
Released in the New England Journal of Medicine, a group of researchers studied the combined use of baricitinib and remdesivir for treating patients infected with COVID-19.
The findings, researchers say, show promising results for reducing recovery time in infected patients. The study involved the recruitment of nearly 1,000 patients, as part of a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial.
From the findings: “Baricitinib plus remdesivir was superior to remdesivir alone in reducing recovery time and accelerating improvement in clinical status among patients with Covid-19, notably among those receiving high-flow oxygen or noninvasive ventilation.”
“The combination was associated with fewer serious adverse events,” the co-authors wrote in their NEJM article.
Researchers stress that despite these findings, more clinical studies of this combination should be a top consideration moving forward, as the use of both drug treatment has shown to be beneficial for some patients with COVID-19.
