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News > Brazil

Brazil Allows Use of Remdesivir for COVID-19 Treatment

  • Sample of anti-viral Remdesivir.

    Sample of anti-viral Remdesivir. | Photo: Twitter/ @ursobra90853196

Published 12 March 2021
Opinion

"This decision is as absurd as President Jair Bolsonaro's calls to use chloroquine in COVID-19 patients," analyst Leni Berenguel said.

Brazil’s National Health Surveillance Agency (ANVISA) Friday allowed the use of the anti-viral Remdesivir drug to treat patients with severe COVID-19 symptoms.

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The drug created to treat Ebola will be applied in young and adult patients who are hospitalized with COVID-19 pneumonia.

ANVISA approved it because no serious adverse effects were reported among the volunteers during its clinical studies in Brazil. However, other countries have not been able to prove the drug's effectiveness in bigger studies.

"It makes no sense to approve Remdesivir, especially when is going to cost us a fortune. The drug has not even helped to reduce mortality, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) researches," analyst Leni Berenguel tweeted.

"This decision is as absurd as President Jair Bolsonaro's calls to use chloroquine in COVID-19 patients, when its efficacy was never scientifically proven," Berenguel added.

The decision took place while Brazil is facing the highest peak of contagions and a slow and unequal vaccination process.

“Bolsonaro, who denied the pandemic’s impact and thought the COVID-19 is ‘just a cold’, is responsible for the over 260,000 deaths the country has registered in the last year. He has not bothered to get vaccines and effective drugs to treat the ill," former President Lula Da Silva recalled.

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