Nothing to do, at least for three months. The White House had already been accused of “modern piracy” by the German authorities in March, after blocking a shipment of masks for the Berlin police at the border and trying to option the vaccine to be studied in the German company CureVac. As international calls for a fair distribution of resources against coronavirus multiply, US behavior appears to be going in the opposite direction.
The announcement of the clean sweep on remdesivir was made by the US Department of Health on Monday. “President Trump – reads the announcement – has concluded an amazing agreement to ensure that Americans have access to the first drug authorized against Covid”. 500,000 treatments will go to hospitals in the United States. Each treatment contains 6 or 7 ampoules and costs $ 3,200, payable (for those who have it) by insurance.
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A drug against Coronavirus, but it is for a few
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According to the magazine Medicines Law and Policy the production cost for a week cycle with remdesivir is 7 dollars and the drug (developed in Ebola’s time, but with not brilliant clinical results) has enjoyed a good dose of public funding for the study phase . In March the Gilead, the American company that produces it, had requested that remdesivir be included in the list of orphan drugs, an ad hoc category for rare diseases that provides a series of advantages on patents and exclusives. There Food and Drug Administration he had just granted it when a wave of outrage surged in the United States. Everything can be said about the coronavirus except that it is rare. “This is no time for pharmaceutical companies to take advantage of it,” said Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, among others. About ten days after approval, the “orphan drug” designation was revoked.
Meanwhile, Gilead has granted a production license to some developing countries, such as Egypt, India and Pakistan, to supply their neighbors too. Paradoxically, the bottom of the list are therefore the rich countries other than the United States. Tests on remdesivir had shown that the drug reduces the duration of symptoms by a few days, but not the mortality rate. The only medicine that can save lives at the moment is dexamethasone, an inexpensive cortisone and also available in Italy, which in an Oxford study showed that it could reduce the lethality by a third. New and specific coronavirus drugs such as monoclonal antibodies are expected for autumn.
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