Experimental antiviral drug Remdesivir to be used on patients soon

Updated 7.50: CORONAVIRUS | US-made drug Remdesivir, dubbed as a potential treatment for Covid-19 patients, is expected to be introduced in Malaysia soon.

Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah (photo) said the Health Ministry has approved several applications to bring in the experimental drug into the country recently.

"We received applications to bring in Remdesivir, and have approved one or two of them.

"Insha Allah (God willing), we will try to introduce this new medicine to patients (soon)," he told a press conference in Putrajaya today.

According to him, besides Remdesivir, which is made by American biotechnology company Gilead, the ministry is also using hydroxychloroquine and several other off-label antiviral drugs to treat coronavirus patients.

Hydroxychloroquine is used for treating malaria infection.

According to Gilead's website, Remdesivir trials have been tested on animals against viral pathogens that are structurally similar to Covid-19 like MERS and SARS, which are also coronaviruses.

"The limited preclinical data on Remdesivir in MERS and SARS indicate that Remdesivir may have potential activity against Covid-19," it said.

The drug, however, has yet to be approved for use globally.

According to the Health Ministry's statistics, the current treatment given to Covid-19 patients in the country have resulted in almost 25 percent recovery.

As of noon today, a total of 767 patients have fully recovered and discharged from hospitals nationwide. The total number of positive cases in the country so far was 3,116.

Malaysia's rate of Covid-19 detection tests within WHO standard

Meanwhile, asked on the capacity of daily lab tests to detect Covid-19, Noor Hisham said Malaysia's rate of tests is within the standard set by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

According to him, WHO has set a benchmark of 10 percent positive cases as an adequate capacity.

"It means that for every 10 tests, if there is one positive case, that is adequate. That means we have reached the standard.

"If we see the rate of our tests, we have so far taken 43,406 samples, of which 3,116 were positive.

"The positive ratio is about 7.2 percent, which is within the 10 percent. This means that we are within the standard set by WHO," he said.

Noor Hisham said there are a total of 43 laboratories nationwide that are capable to conduct a total of 11,500 Covid-19 tests a day.

The laboratories include 14 at MOH hospitals, one at the Institute for Medical Research (IMR), five Public Health Laboratories, seven private labs, one at Malaysia Genome Institute, one Armed Forces lab, and 14 owned by public and private higher learning institutions.

MOH is expected to add four more laboratories in its list for Covid-19 detection tests.

Noor Hisham said several laboratories would increase its testing capacity, and they are hoping to reach 16,500 tests a day by next week.

On rapid test kits (RTK) to detect Covid-19 antigen, he told reporters that MOH has concluded its test on a South Korean-made RTK.

However, they have found that the RTK, too, was not up to standard.

"The accuracy was only about 56.6 percent. So, maybe we will have to wait to use a fluorescent reader, to see if we can increase the test (detection).

"At least to about 75 to 80 percent, then only we can use (the test kit)," he said, adding that MOH has also conducted tests on two other brands from China.

It was reported last week that MOH has decided not to order a brand of RTK made by a company from China after the product was found to have low detection accuracy.

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