New York (AFP)

Antiviral remdesivir from the American laboratory Gilead Sciences has failed to improve the condition of patients with Covid-19, according to the results of one of the first clinical trials on the drug in China and published briefly on Thursday, a heavy blow at the time of many countries are working on deconfinement scenarios.

A summary of the results of the clinical trial was published in error, before being withdrawn, on the World Health Organization (WHO) website, the Financial Times reported.

"We regret that the WHO published information about the study prematurely," Gilead Sciences responded in an email to AFP. "The researchers in this study did not give their permission to publish the results."

In addition to the form, the American biotech criticizes the background, arguing that the sample was too small to draw useful results.

"We believe that the summary includes inappropriate representations of the study. This is important to emphasize because the trial was stopped early enough, due to a low participation rate, which does not allow drawing any conclusions. statistically significant conclusions, "the laboratory split.

"Consequently, the results of the trial are inconclusive, although trends in the data suggest that remdesivir has a beneficial side especially for patients taken care of early," concludes Gilead Sciences, whose action was abused on Wall Street when the press article was published.

The Covid-19 pandemic has already claimed more than 180,000 lives worldwide since its appearance in China in December. It has brought the world economy to its knees.

Interest in the antiviral remdesivir, which had failed treatment for Ebola, is high because there is currently no approved treatment or vaccine for Covid-19, which attacks the lungs and other organs in extremely serious cases.

Many trials, including larger ones, are underway, as well as other drugs. This study is therefore not the end of the road to remdesivir.

- Side effects -

The Chinese trial showed that "remdesivir (...) does not improve the condition of patients or reduce the presence of the pathogen in the blood system," said the FT, citing the document published on the WHO site.

WHO told the specialized site Stat that the study had been published in error on the site before being evaluated by a reading committee.

237 patients participated in the study, carried out according to the most rigorous method, a so-called "randomized" trial, with a group of treated patients (158) and a control group (79 patients treated according to standards of care but without the drug whose efficiency we seek to know). Gilead was targeting at least 400 people.

The researchers also concluded that the Gilead Sciences treatment could have "significant" side effects, so that they stopped treatment fairly quickly for 18 patients.

Besides China, remdesivir is also being tested in clinical trials in the United States and Europe.

Researchers and laboratories are trying first to "reposition" existing drugs instead of developing new ones, to see if they can act against Covid-19.

Two main approaches are being tested: antivirals to directly fight the virus and drugs acting on the immune system to control the body's inflammatory reaction.

In Europe, the Discovery trial, launched on March 22 in seven countries, aims to test four potential treatments: the antiviral remdesivir, the combination lopinavir / ritonavir, these anti-retrovirals combined with interferon beta and hydroxychloroquine, derived from the antimalarial chloroquine, while other patients will receive a placebo.

For hydroxychloroquine, widely used in emergencies in multiple countries and promoted in combination with the antibiotic azithromycin by the French doctor Didier Raoult, the studies published so far are inconclusive, even indicate a negative effect on patients; but they are not the most rigorous "randomized" studies.

A panel of experts from the US government this week explicitly advised against this dual therapy based on hydroxychloroquine.

© 2020 AFP