Potential treatments for novel coronavirus

So far there are no specific medications for COVID-19. But some drugs and therapies have been proven to be effective in treating patients. Let's have a look at them.

Remdesivir

An experimental drug created by United States biotech company Gilead Sciences to combat the Ebola virus. Scientists are conducting two trials on 761 patients at more than 10 medical institutions in Wuhan, Hubei province.

The clinical trials are randomized, control-grouped, double-blind experiments. One is designed to assess Remdesivir's potency on 308 people with mild or moderate infections, while the other features 453 severely infected patients, according to Cao Bin, who is leading the trials, at the launch ceremony last month.

Cao said studies have shown that Remdesivir is effective in arresting growth of the coronavirus in vitro, meaning the procedure was conducted on cells in a controlled environment outside of a living organism, typically in a petri dish or test tube.