Critical care teams should consider using remdesivir to treat patients with severe acute SARS-CoV-2 infection, but supply of the drug is limited and best practices for maximizing its effectiveness are not completely understood.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines have been revised to recommend use of remdesivir in hospitalized patients with severe disease, defined as “SpO2 ≤94% on ambient air (at sea level), requiring supplemental oxygen, mechanical ventilation, or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation.”

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization for the investigational antiviral drug, providing one fact sheet for clinicians and another that can be distributed to patients.

This approach followed preliminary results of a randomized controlled clinical trial that suggested remdesivir treatment was associated with faster recovery in patients with advanced COVID-19.

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