In a February 25, 2020 press release, the FDA announced that a randomized, controlled clinical trial to evaluate the safety and efficacy of the investigational antiviral remdesivir in hospitalized adults diagnosed with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has begun at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) in Omaha. The trial regulatory sponsor is the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health. This is the first clinical trial in the United States to evaluate an experimental treatment for COVID-19, the respiratory disease first detected in December 2019 in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. The first trial participant is an American who was repatriated after being quarantined on the Diamond Princess cruise ship that docked in Yokohama, Japan and volunteered to participate in the study. The study can be adapted to evaluate additional investigative treatments and to enroll participants at other sites in the U.S. and worldwide. There are no specific therapeutics approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat people with COVID-19, the disease caused by the newly emergent SARS-CoV-2 virus (formerly known as 2019-nCoV). Infection can cause mild to severe respiratory illness, and symptoms can include fever, cough, and shortness of breath. As of February 24, the World Health Organization (WHO) had reported 77,262 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 2,595 deaths in China and 2,069 cases of COVID-19 and 23 deaths in 29 other countries. There had been 14 confirmed COVID-19 cases reported in the United States and an additional 39 cases among persons repatriated to the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) at that time.Login Or Register To Read Full Story