Coronavirus: 79-year-old patient recovers after taking failed Ebola drug

Treatment ‘seems to work’, health official says, with Donald Trump adding: 'It could be a game changer'

An Italian patient has successfully recovered from coronavirus after being given a drug once hoped to fight Ebola.

The 79-year-old started his treatment on 7 March and has now taken two negative tests, according to a health official at a hospital in Genoa, northern Italy.

“We have our first truly recovered patient who was treated with the experimental drug remdesivir,” Matteo Bassetti said on Tuesday.

“We are really happy about this,” the head of the infectious disease clinic at San Martino hospital said. “The drug seems to work.”

The patient would “soon return back to his home in Lombardy”, Dr Bassetti added.

Pharmaceutical companies are also working to develop treatments for coronavirus, including with Gilead Sciences Inc’s experimental remdesivir.

The antiviral drug – which has been tested as a potential treatment for Ebola – has shown some promise against viruses similar to the one causing Covid-19.

Even President Donald Trump has spoken out in support of remdesivir, saying on Thursday that the drug seemed to have very good results fighting coronavirus.

Trump, speaking at a news conference, pointed to efforts on Gilead Sciences Inc's experimental antiviral drug Remdesivir and the generic antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine, saying he had called for regulatory approval process to be streamlined.

"We have to remove every barrier," Trump said.

Trials on potential coronavirus therapies are already in the works, and it was unclear how Trump's call for faster experimental testing process could further expedite an effective treatment.

"It could be a game changer or maybe not," Trump told reporters.

The New England Journal of Medicine described earlier this month how the drug was successfully used on the first patient infected by Covid-19 in the United States.

Results from a remdesivir trial in China could out come early next month, while Gilead has begun two international trials of the drug that previously fell through as a potential Ebola treatment.

The National Institutes of Health has also begun testing it on patients in a US trial last month.

Italy - where health authorities said a recovered coronavirus patient took remdesivir – is among the worst-affected countries, with the death toll recently surpassing that of China, where the virus originated.

More than 35,700 people have been infected in the southern European country, which had a death toll of nearly 3,000 deaths as of Thursday.

The virus has put the entire country on a lockdown, which the country’s prime minister said would likely go on for longer than first planned.

Additional reporting by agencies