World Health Organization Finds Potential, But Not 100% Confident On COVID-19 Treatments

The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Tuesday observed that some treatments appear to be limiting the severity of COVID-19, but nothing that can prevent or kill the virus, the news agency Reuters quoted a WHO spokesperson as saying.

The WHO spokesperson observed that there was some potentially positive data was emerging out of many countries, but more data was required for the international agency to be 100% confident to determine a specific line of treatment. She is quoted by the agency as saying that more research was needed and planned.

In recent days, Gilead Science Inc claimed that its anti-viral drug Remdesivir had helped improve the results in the case of COVID-19 patients. Anti-viral medicines have also been seen as a likely line of treatment to contain the virus.

Glenmark had announced on Monday that it had reached stage three of clinical trials in the making of the anti-viral Favipiravir for COVID-19 in India.

The WHO official is quoted as saying that Coronaviruses in general are not easy to produce vaccines against. Currently a number of companies around the world are in the process of developing vaccines for COVID-19. However, experts have pointed out on several occasions that vaccine development is a time-consuming process and has to pass through many rounds of clinical trials. It is unlikely, experts say, that any vaccine would be market-ready before October-November 2021.