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Over 217,000 virus deaths reported worldwide

PARIS: At least 217,439 people have died worldwide since the Covid-19 pandemic surfaced in China in December, according to a tally issued on Wednesday night.

In total, just over 3.1 million cases have now been reported. In the United States, which has now passed the one-million-case mark, 58,355 people have died, the most for any country.

Italy is the second hardest-hit country, with 27,359 dead. Spain follows with 24,275, then France with 23,660 and the United Kingdom with 21,678.

Belgium is the country with the most deaths per capita.

More than 130,000 people have died in Europe from the coronavirus, three quarters of them in Italy, Spain, France and Britain, according to the tally from official sources.

More than 130,000 people have died in Europe

France’s Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said his country would begin a gradual return to normality on May 11, with shops, markets and some schools reopening and the wearing of masks compulsory on public transport.

Spain would transition out of its strict lockdown in four phases from May 9 through the end of June, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said. Schools would remain closed until September.

Face masks are now mandatory in shops across Germany. Nose and mouth coverings are also compulsory on buses, trains and trams.

Germany extended its warning against worldwide travel until June 14. “We have not yet reached the point where we can recommend carefree travel,” said Foreign Minister Heiko Maas.

Russia extended its entry ban for foreigners, in place since mid-March. The ban would remain in place until the country has the virus under control, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said.

Promising drug

In a welcome development, a top US scientist said an antiviral drug, remdesivir, had a “clear-cut” effect in helping Covid-19 patients recover. The scientist oversaw a large clinical trial and hailed it as proof that a drug can block the coronavirus.

Anthony Fauci made the remarks at the White House shortly after the medicine’s maker, Gilead Sciences, revealed it had met its primary goals in the largest and most robust investigation to date.

Fauci said “the data shows that remdesivir has a clear-cut, significant, positive effect in diminishing the time to recovery,” adding that it proves “that a drug can block this virus”.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which Fauci leads, is soon expected to release a detailed summary of the results, so it remains difficult to quantify exactly how well the drug performed.

Nevertheless, it represents the first time any medication has been shown to improve outcomes against the Covid-19 illness.

There had been mixed news about the intravenous antiviral in recent weeks. A summary of results posted on the website of the World Health Organisation last week showed it failed in a smaller Chinese trial. The Lancet on Wednesday published the formal paper describing that experiment.

In this study of 237 patients in Wuhan, China, doctors found no positive effects of administering the drug compared with a control group of adults, except for those patients who required ventilators.

But the Chinese test had to be halted early because it could not recruit enough people to meet its initial goals, and was considered by many experts to be too small to draw reliable conclusions from.

Fauci said it was “not an adequate study”. The US-led trial, however, which began in late February, is thus far the largest to investigate remdesivir and is technically the most robust.

According to a data sheet, its estimated enrolment was 800 patients, a portion of whom received the drug while the rest received a placebo, with the trial conducted at multiple sites across the world.

Neither the patients nor their physicians were aware of which group they belonged to, in order to eliminate unconscious bias.

Its main goal was to evaluate how long patients take to recover on versus off the drug — with three different categories of recovery: hospitalised but no longer needing oxygen; discharged from hospital but still limited in their home activities; and discharged from hospital with no limits on home activities.

Without numeric data it is hard to judge just how well patients did but Gilead’s statement indicates there was an overall improvement over the placebo.

Published in Dawn, April 30th, 2020



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