Remdesivir: The exclusive anti-COVID drug used by AMLO’s son

In February 2021, José Ramón López Beltrán, son of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, required hospitalization after becoming ill with COVID-19for which he was admitted to the Central Military Hospital.

According to an investigation published by the Latinus news portal, an exclusive medicine was delivered to the son of the President of Mexico, then inaccessible in the country; With a cost of 40,000 pesos, the drug could be purchased by few people at that time.

According to the Latinus investigation, the son of López Obrador was obtained Remdesivir, a medicine used as a treatment against COVID-19.

The investigation describes the route followed by two official Army units that mobilized with the aim of obtaining the medicine for José Ramón López Beltrán.

What is remdesivir and how does it work?

The antiviral drug remdesivir Reduces recovery time in coronavirus patientsaccording to research results published in May 2020.

Remdesivir, from the US laboratory Gilead and originally created against Ebola, has been one of the most widely used drugs to treat COVID-19, although the World Health Organization (WHO) warned earlier in November that this antiviral it does not prevent deaths or severe forms of the disease.

The study was carried out by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the United States, and published by the New England Journal of Medicine on May 22 of that year.

The United States authorized the emergency use of remdesivir in May 2020 and gave full authorization in October, a measure that Japan also took and that Europe adopted later.

In Mexico, the drug was approved until March 2021, one month after the case of López Obrador’s son.

The study found that remdesivir, Injected intravenously for 10 days, it speeds recovery in patients hospitalized for COVID-19, compared to the use of a placebo.

The clinical tests were carried out with more than a thousand patients in ten different countries.

On April 29, a few weeks ago, the then director of NIAID, Anthony Fauci, the visible face of the Donald Trump administration in the management of the pandemicsaid preliminary tests showed remdesivir had a “clear, significant and positive effect in decreasing recovery time.”

However, the study authors indicate that the drug it cannot prevent all deaths.

“Given the high mortality despite the use of remdesivir, it is clear that treatment with an antiviral drug alone is probably not sufficient,” they write.

With information from AFP

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