Treatment Outcomes of Remdesivir in COVID-19 Patients

Objective: To evaluate effectiveness of Remdesivir in COVID-19 patients in terms of length of hospital stay, duration of oxygen dependency, and mortality. Study Design: Quasi-experimental study. Place and Duration of Study: Department of Medicine, Combined Military Hospital, Bahawalpur Pakistan, from Nov 2021 to Apr 2022. Methodology: We included 170 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 and recorded their clinical characteristics in addition to outcomes related towards oxygen dependence, death, and hospital stay duration on a self-designed data collection tool which was administered by the researchers. The data was analyzed, and statistical correlations were determined. Results: Our total sample size of 170 patients, comprised of 91(53.5%) males and 79(46.5%) females with an average age of 53.95±14.09 years. We noted mild disease to be present in 17.6 % of patients, moderate in 65.9 %, and severe in 16.5 % while 65 (38.2%) patients were oxygen-dependent at the time of admission. Fever was the most frequent complaint experienced by 84.7% of patients. Remdesivir was administered to 90(52.9%) patients, among which 65 recovered early with a hospital stay of less than a week while 20(23.3%) patients had prolonged stay due to oxygen dependency, other complications (10, 11.1%) or comorbidities (11, 12.2 %) respectively (p-value=0.000) while the rate of mortality was also significantly reduced in patients who received Remdesivir (4.44 %) compared to those who did not (17.5 %) (p-value<0.001). Conclusion: Remdesivir significantly decreased the duration of hospital stay, oxygen dependency, and rate of mortality without causing any adverse effects.