FDA approves emergency use of arthritis drug in combination with remdesivir to treat Covid-19

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Thursday approved emergency use of Eli Lilly’s, a pharmaceutical company, arthritis drug- Baricitinib- in combination with remdesivir, to treat coronavirus patients, reported Consumer News and Business Channel (CNBC).

Sold under the name of Olumiant, Baricitinib is an FDA-approved oral medication used to treat moderately-to-severely active rheumatoid arthritis.

According to CNBC, the approval was based on a review of the data from a clinical trial of hospitalized Covid-19 patients sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

“The trial showed an approximately one-day reduction in median recovery time for patients treated with the combination versus those treated with remdesivir,” the article read.

CNBC further reported that the health regulator approved the drug for treating suspected or laboratory confirmed hospitalised Covid-19 patients which included adults, children over  two-years-old who require oxygen support.

On November 19, it was reported that regardless of their detectable antibody levels, most Covid-19 survivors are likely to have lasting protection against severe Covid-19 if they become reinfected, thanks to other components of the body's immune response that remember the new coronavirus in different ways, researchers say.

In a study of 185 patients, including 41 who had been infected more than six months earlier, scientists at La Jolla Institute for Immunology in California found that multiple branches of the immune system - not just antibodies - recognised the novel coronavirus for at least eight months.

For example, so-called memory B cells that could recognize the virus and produce antibodies to fight it were more abundant six months after infection than at one month, they reported in a paper posted on Monday on bioRxiv ahead of peer review.

The new findings "suggest that the immune system can remember the virus for years, and most people may be protected from severe Covid-19 for a substantial time," said study leaders Shane Crotty and Alessandro Sette.

Final data from Pfizer vaccine trial shows 95% efficacy

Final results from Pfizer’s pivotal Covid-19 vaccine trial show it had a 95% success rate - even higher than an earlier analysis - and two months of follow-up data without serious side effects, the company said on Wednesday. In the study involving about 43,000 volunteers, 162 of the 170 who contracted Covid-19 had received a placebo, not the vaccine. Of the 10 participants who had severe Covid-19, only one had received the vaccine.

The final analysis of the trial’s data comes a week after interim results showed the vaccine was more than 90% effective. Moderna on Monday released preliminary data for its vaccine, showing 94.5% effectiveness.

Pfizer said the efficacy of its two-dose vaccine, developed with German partner BioNTech SE, was consistent across different age and ethnic groups. Efficacy in adults over age 65 was over 94%. Pfizer said it expects to make up to 50 million vaccine doses this year - enough to inoculate 25 million people - and up to 1.3 billion doses in 2021.