'The Strange Story Of Remdesivir (Veklury/Gilead), A Covid Drug That Doesn’t Work (author Chamary)'; The drug proved ineffective against the Ebola virus, however, yet was still subsequently repurposed

for coronavirus; But the published data lated showed that "remdesivir was not associated with statistically significant clinical benefits [and] the numerical reduction in time to clinical improvement"

‘What's weird about remdesivir is that it hasn't been held to the same standards as other drug candidates.

Covid-19 vaccines have been developed 10 times faster than traditional drugs, but they've passed the phase-3 clinical trials that test whether a potential medicine is both safe and effective in thousands of people.

Normally, a drug is only approved for use by a regulatory body like the US Food and Drug Administration if it meets the two criteria for safety and efficacy. Nonetheless, in October 2020, remdesivir was granted approval by FDA based on promising data from relatively small trials with about 1000 participants.

A large-scale analysis by the World Health Organization's Solidarity trial consortium has cleared-up the confusion. Based on interim results from studying more than 5000 participants, the international study concluded that remdesivir "had little or no effect on hospitalized patients with Covid-19, as indicated by overall mortality, initiation of ventilation, and duration of hospital stay."''