Egypt to soon use anti-viral Remdesivir in coronavirus treatment: official

CAIRO – 4 June 2020: Egypt is about to use the anti-viral drug, Remdesivir (GS-5734), as part of its medical protocol to treat coronavirus patients, a health official said, adding that Hydroxychloroquine will continue to be included.

Remdesivir was developed by the American biopharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences and has shown some good indications in coronavirus treatment.

The Health Ministry’s scientific committee to combat coronavirus (COVID-19) has affirmed that Hydroxychloroquine shows good results with the coronavirus patients in Egypt and shows no harm, Hossam Hosny, head of the committee told dmc said. He, however, warned against taking any medication without medical advice.

Hosny also called on those who have recently recovered from the novel virus to donate blood, a month after Egypt had announced starting treating coronavirus patients using plasma.

Health Minister Hala Zayed earlier said Egypt has the required experience in the convalescent plasma therapy and that the ministry is working hard through scientific research to find treatment for coronavirus patients.

Egypt reported 1,079 new coronavirus, COVID-19 cases, Wednesday, raising the total number of confirmed cases since the outbreak in Egypt to 28,615.

Spokesman for the Health Ministry Khaled Megahed said in the daily briefing that 36 patients have died from the virus over the past 24 hours, raising the death toll to 1,088.

As many as 523 patients were discharged from isolation hospitals after receiving necessary medical care, taking the number of recovered cases to 7,350 so far, the spokesman said.

The number of coronavirus patients who had now been retested for the virus and received negative results has reached 8,371, he added.