Adventist Hospital Is Site for Testing Potential COVID-19 Medicine
4 May 2020 | Kettering Medical Center, the Adventist hospital in Dayton, Ohio, will participate in the expanded clinical trial for the antiviral drug remdesivir, the Dayton Daily News reported on Friday. Remdesivir was approved for testing by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in an emergency decision the same day.
Gilead Science, the maker of the medication, announced last Wednesday that early testing showed earlier recovery in patients treated with it as compared to a placebo. The drug was originally developed to treat Ebola and has been tested in the current pandemic because there is no medication to treat COVID-19.
Only the sickest patients will get the drug, Dr. Patrick Lytle, vice president for clinical outcomes at Kettering, told the newspaper. “Patients must be on a ventilator and have reasonable organ function, because the drug can affect the liver,” the newspaper reported.
Remdesivir has received worldwide attention in recent days and been cited as a source of hope in the relentless coronavirus crisis. There have been tests in China and Europe, and leaders around the world as well as the entire medical community are watching the next stage of clinical trials.
“When we were given the opportunity, we jumped at this,” Lytle told the newspaper. Kettering Health Network is the Adventist medical ministry that operates eight hospitals in the Dayton metropolitan area, as well as Kettering College and some two dozen community health centers and medical offices.