The man’s treatment, who was admitted with lung failure, began three days ago and his condition improved so well that he no longer needs ECMO machine which secured the extracorporeal oxygenation of blood. Only patients in the most critical condition are provided with ECMO. Therefore, the patient’s lungs experienced severe damage and even though he might recover from the coronavirus infection, his future condition is still unclear.

Remdesivir is produced by American company Gilead Sciences thanks to their team led by Czech Tomáš Cihlář. Due to a massive demand the company had to limit the access to the experimental treatment and only pregnant women and people younger than 18 years of age are currently admitted.

Originally, remdesivir was designated to treat ebola disease in Congo, but the African epidemic was supressed, and any further tests were subsequently cancelled as the back then performed lab tests showed that remedisivir was not so effective at fighting ebola. However, it has proven to be effective at inhibiting the growth of similar viruses, such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). 

Generally speaking, remdesivir is an antiviral drug which prevents virus from its multiplication and subsequent spread in patient’s body. Furthermore, WHO announced that the drug is nowadays the most promising possible cure. "There's only one drug right now that we think may have real efficacy. And that's remdesivir," said Bruce Aylward of the World Health Organization.