Portugal expects the European Commission to authorize the use of Remdesivir in cases of covid-19 next week, said the Minister of Health today, indicating that there is already a program for access to the medicine in hospitals of the National Health Service.
At the press conference to monitor the pandemic, Marta Temido referred to Infarmed “has guaranteed the existence of an early access program for the use of this medicine in hospitals in the NHS, in the necessary cases”.
Portugal is also discussing with the company the access and purchase prices of the antiviral for which the European Medicines Agency (AEM) has already recommended a market authorization in the European Union, the first for a drug against covid-19.
The director-general of Health, Graça Freitas, indicated that hospitals have activated the early access program and have used Remdesivir “for critically ill patients”.
The General Directorate of Health points out that the medicine “was useful in the pediatric area, access was quick and easy and in the children who used it, it went well”.
The recommendation of the AEM Committee for Medicines for Human Use is for the use of Remdesivir in patients with covid -19 adults and young people over 12 years of age who are still suffering from pneumonia and need to receive oxygen.
The covid-19 pandemic has already claimed nearly 487,000 deaths and infected more than 9.6 million people in 196 countries and territories, according to a report by the French agency AFP.
In Portugal, 1,555 people out of 40,866 confirmed as infected died, according to the most recent bulletin from the Directorate-General for Health.
The disease is transmitted by a new coronavirus detected in late December in Wuhan, a city in central China.
After Europe succeeded China as the center of the pandemic in February, the American continent is now the one with the most confirmed cases and the most deaths.
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