China has started clinical trial for remdesivir in coronavirus treatment in Wuhan, Gilead Sciences says remdesivir has not yet been approved to treat the novel coronavirus patients in China

Chinese Health authorities have confirmed new deaths cases caused by the novel coronavirus epidemic on Thursday at 73. With this the death toll rose to 638 globally including 1 death in Philippines. Newly confirmed cases rose by 3,143, a second consecutive daily drop, bringing the total to 31211 cases in the country, according to data released on Friday morning by China’s National Health Commission. Around 240 cases have been confirmed abroad. Majority of the deaths came from Hubei, the epicentre of the outbreak, where 69 new fatalities from the epidemic were reported on Thursday, one less fatality compared with the day before.

China has started clinical trial for remdesivir in coronavirus treatment in Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital on Thursday. A 68-year-old male patient with serious symptoms was the first to be given the drug. However, Gilead Sciences Inc which developed Remdisivir said on Thursday that the drug is not yet licensed or approved anywhere globally and it has not been demonstrated to be safe or effective for coronavirus infection treatment.

The company said it had filed patent applications for the drug’s use on coronaviruses in China and some other countries and regions in 2016, but it has not yet received approval in China. It said, its focus is now on rapidly determining remdesivir’s potential as a treatment for the 2019 novel coronavirus, rather than discussing compulsory licensing or any other kind of permissions for drug manufacturing. The comments came after the Wuhan Institute of Virology said on Wednesday that it had filed a patent application to use remdesivir to treat the novel coronavirus on January 21, which has sparked debate on China’s social media about intellectual property issues.