The use of Remdesivir, the drug developed by Gilead for the treatment of Covid-19, is able to reduce the number of ICU patients by more than 17000 units and, potentially, prevent about 7000 deaths in 5 months.
These are the results of the application of a model developed by a team of health economists from the UniCamillus International Medical University of Rome, starting from analytical data provided directly by the pharmaceutical company.
“The study – explained Alessandro Signorini, director of the UniCamillus Health Economics Team – uses a dynamic epidemiological model linked to a traditional economic-health model. It estimates the impact of the use of human and technological resources of alternative interventions aimed at dealing with the Covid 19 emergency in a hospital setting”.
Specifically, the model, developed in a study published in the journal ABOUTOpen HTA & Market Access, predicted the development of the pandemic over 20 weeks – in terms of infected people and access to ICUs – based on available epidemiological data.
The main objectives were the estimate of the total number of infected people based on the Italian population and healthcare costs directly associated with the treatment of hospitalized and ICU patients, with and without recourse to the Remdesivir therapy.
The results obtained highlight the importance of taking Remdesivir in the initial stages of infection in order to prevent the virus from spreading and triggering the most severe respiratory symptoms.
As regards the number of infections, two scenarios were considered, one pessimistic and one optimistic.
On the one hand, the pessimistic scenario with an Rt expected to be 1.1 up to week 12, explains “5.4 million infected, a reduction of 25750 accesses to ICUs, 15,047 deaths and a saving of 512 million euros is obtained” .
In the optimistic scenario, on the other hand, with a Rt decreasing by 0.2 points per week starting from the fourth week, there would be “1.3 million infected, there is a reduction of 12,500 hospitalizations in intensive care, 4,800 deaths and a saving of 294 million”.
With regard to costs, the length of hospitalization was considered on an average of 19 days of hospitalization: 674€ per day for hospitalization, 1654€ per day for ICUs with an equal cost of 345€ per vial for 5 days of therapy.
