Several drugs under trial for COVID-19, remedesivirleading contender: scientists

With a vaccine still a long distance away, efforts to repurpose old medications used for other ailments provide hope of an early counter to COVID-19, say scientists, placing the antiviral remdesivir on top of the list of possible contenders.

As COVID-19 continues its spread -- crossing 5.2 million cases and 3,38,000 fatalities on Saturday -- several categories of drugs are under clinical trial. Of them, remdesivir, which initially went into trials for treating the deadly Ebola virus five years ago, has shown promise by modestly speeding recovery from COVID-19, experts said.

More than 130 drugs are under experimentation to treat COVID-19, some may have the potential to stop the viruswhile others may help calm overactive immune responses that damage organs, according to a tracker maintained by the Milken Institute,an independent economic think tank in the US,