Why in news?
In response to the 2019–20 Wuhan coronavirus outbreak , Gilead Sciences provided Remdesivir for a “small number of patients”affected by nCoV-2019 in collaboration with Chinese medical authorities for studying its effects.
Key points
- The new antiviral agent of Remdesivir (GS-5734), was developed by Gilead Sciences as a Ebola Virus medicine, is a new analog nucleotide medication.
- It has subsequently been found to show reasonable antiviral activity against more distantly related viruses such as respiratory syncytial virus, Junin virus, Lassa fever virus, and MERS-coronavirus.
- It may also help protect against Nipah, SARS and Hendra virus infections.
