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. 2024 Nov 12;4(1):231.
doi: 10.1038/s43856-024-00650-4.

The effects of remdesivir on long-term symptoms in patients hospitalised for COVID-19: a pre-specified exploratory analysis

Thale D J Hovdun Patrick-Brown  1   2 , Andreas Barratt-Due  3 , Marius Trøseid  4   5   6 , Anne Ma Dyrhol-Riise  4   7 , Katerina Nezvalova-Henriksen  8   9   10 , Trine Kåsine  4   11 , Pål Aukrust  4   5   6 , Inge C Olsen  12 ; NOR Solidarity consortium
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The effects of remdesivir on long-term symptoms in patients hospitalised for COVID-19: a pre-specified exploratory analysis

Thale D J Hovdun Patrick-Brown et al. Commun Med (Lond). .

Abstract

Background: There is an unmet need for treatment of long-term symptoms following COVID-19. Remdesivir is currently the only antiviral approved by the European Medicines Agency for hospitalised patients. Here, we report on the effect of remdesivir in addition to standard of care on long-term symptoms and quality of life in hospitalised patients with COVID-19 as part of the open-label randomised NOR-Solidarity trial (NCT04321616).

Methods: A total of 185 patients were included in the main trial, of which 118 (60%) were randomised to either remdesivir (n = 42; 36%) or a post-hoc defined control group composed of patients who received standard of care alone or standard of care with hydroxychloroquine (n = 76; 64%). Participants were given quality of life surveys to fill out to gauge their self-reported health over time (the COPD assessment test, the EQ-5D-5L and the RAND SF-36).

Results: Here we show that after three months, patients treated with remdesivir do not show significant improvements in stated health compared to those who were not. There are self-reported symptoms of fatigue [mean remdesivir group 2.6 (standard deviation 1.5) v control 2.1 (1.6), 95% confidence interval(CI) -1.17 to 0.15, p = 0.129], shortness of breath [3.0 (1.7) v 2.1 (1.8), 95% CI -1.53 to 0.16, p = 0.110] and coughing [1.8 (1.6) v 1.2 (1.5), 95% CI -1.3 to 0.33, p = 0.237] 3 months after randomisation assessed via the COPD Assessment Test.

Conclusions: Our findings indicate that treatment with remdesivir during hospitalisation does not provide any clinically relevant long-term benefit.

Plain language summary

Remdesivir is a medicine that is used to treat people with COVID-19. It has been found to help people get better faster, but we did not know whether it also relieved them of long-term symptoms such as persistent coughing, fatigue, or shortness of breath. To research this, we randomly assigned hospitalised patients with COVID-19 to either remdesivir on top of their normal care, or only normal care, with or without hydroxychloroquine (a drug later found to have no effect on COVID-19). We then compared participant’s symptoms after 3 months. Our results show that there is probably no benefit of using remdesivir during hospitalisation for long-term symptom relief.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests None of the authors declare any competing interests. The formal sponsor, Oslo University Hospital, was not directly (other than as an employer of the study group) involved in any of the study stages including study design, data analysis or manuscript preparation.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Participant flow chart for the trial and the final number who completed the patient-reported outcome measure surveys.
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