Coronavirus patients in the United States will begin to receive Remdesivir this week, as authorities push out the antiviral drug by Gilead Sciences, Chief Executive Officer Daniel O’Day said Sunday.
His assurances are coming just days after the U.S. Food and Drugs Administration approved emergency use for people with Covid-19
“We are now firmly focused on getting this medicine to the most urgent patients,” O’Day said on CBS’s Face the Nation.
“We intend to get that to patients in the early part of this next week, beginning to work with the government, which will determine which cities are most vulnerable and where the patients are that need this medicine.”
O’Day indicated the federal government hasn’t mandated that the U.S. market get priority over foreign markets in receiving the medicine.
Emergency use is limited to hospitalized patients with low blood-oxygen levels or who need breathing support, the Food and Drug Administration said in a statement on its approval action.
Meanwhile Turkish people who have recovered from Covid-19 now outnumber those who are infected for the first time since March, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said in a Twitter post on Sunday.
Turkey reported 1,670 new infections in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 126,045, the minister said. Almost 5,000 recovered, bringing the total to 63,151 while fatalities rose 1.8% to 3,397.
