China is forging ahead in the search for treatments for people sickened by the new
coronavirus that has infected more than 28,000 people in a countrywide epidemic, killed
more than 500 and seeded smaller outbreaks in 14 other nations. The need is urgent: There
are no approved treatments for illnesses caused by coronaviruses. On Thursday, China
began enrolling patients in a clinical trial of remdesivir, an antiviral medicine made by
Gilead, the American pharmaceutical giant. The drug has not ben studied in patients with
any coronavirus disease. But studies of infected mice and monkeys have suggested that
remdesivir can fight coronaviruses. And it appears to be safe. It was tested without ill
effects in Ebola patients, although it did not work well against that virus, which is in
a different family from coronaviruses. Doctors in Washington State gave remdesivir to
the first coronavirus patient in the United States last week after his condition worsened
and pneumonia developed when he'd been in the hospital for a week. His symptoms
improved the next day. "It is important to keep in mind that this is an experimental
medicine that has only been used in a small number of patients with 2019-nCoV to
date, so we do not have an appropriately robust understanding of the effect of this
drug to warrant broad use at this time," Ryan McKeel, a Gilead spkesman, said in an
email. The report from China published on Tuesday about remdesivir also found that
chloroquine, a cheap drug used for decades to treat malaria, could also fight the new
coronavirus. Researchers are recommending that it also be studied, along with various
antiviral medications, including some of the onew used to treat H.I.V.