Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center has started enrolling participants in an international clinical trial evaluating an investigational antiviral drug, remdesivir, for treatment of covid-19.

Remdesivir, developed by Gilead Sciences Inc., was previously tested in humans with Ebola and has shown some therapeutic benefit against SARS and MERS coronaviruses in animal models. The drug is not approved anywhere globally for use outside of clinical trials.

Hershey Medical Center is one of 75 sites worldwide participating in the trial and is the only site to offer the trial in central Pennsylvania.

Enrollment is only open to patients hospitalized with covid-19, and the trial is randomized, controlled and double blind. Medical professionals and patients will not know whether they are receiving the antiviral drug or a placebo.

The research team will reach out to eligible hospitalized patients directly, according to the health system.

“Health care providers around the world are looking for effective therapies to treat covid-19,” said Dr. Catharine Paules, an infectious disease physician with Penn State Health. “This clinical trial provides us with an opportunity to begin investigating whether this experimental therapy may be safe and helpful to patients in our community and beyond.”

Penn State Health releases data on how many patients it is treating for covid-19, and as of Wednesday, Hershey Medical Center had 13 confirmed cases in the hospital and seven under investigation. Since treatment of covid-19 began, 34 patients have been discharged from the hospital and one patient has died.

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