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US Hospitals Passing on Some Purchases of COVID-Fighting Drug

VOA News

   Some hospitals in the U.S. have been turning down part of their
   allocated supply of remdesivir, the COVID-19-fighting drug made by
   Gilead Sciences, the U.S. Health and Human Services Department
   confirmed Friday.

   From July 6 to September 8, state and territorial public health systems
   accepted about 72% of the remdesivir they were offered by HHS, a
   spokesperson confirmed Friday to Reuters. Hospitals then bought about
   two-thirds of what the states and territories accepted.

   The government has been leading the distribution of the drug, but that
   effort expires at the end of the month, and some hospitals are
   stockpiling remdesivir because they don't know what the availability of
   the drug will be after September and want to be prepared if the
   pandemic flares this winter.

   Gilead did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters.

   Hospital say their supplies of the drug are adequate partly because
   they are only using it to treat the sickest patients despite the Food
   and Drug Administration greenlighting its use in more cases.

   Dr. Adarsh Bhimraj, an infectious disease specialist at the Cleveland
   Clinic, said he is skeptical about using remdesivir in patients with
   moderate COVID-19, especially given the price.

   The resulting surplus of remdesivir, which costs $3,120 for a six-vial
   intravenous course, contrasts the early days of the pandemic, when the
   new drug was in short supply in some regions.

   For the first time since mid-March, Canada has gone 24 hours without
   reporting a death from COVID-19, according to public health agency data
   released late Friday.

   Canada has 9,214 deaths from COVID-19 and 137,676 confirmed cases of
   the coronavirus disease as of Friday, according to Johns Hopkins
   University data.

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