BRYAN, TX — Governor Greg Abbott announced on Tuesday that the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) will distribute an additional case of the antiviral drug Remdesivir, a drug shown to speed up recovery time in COVID-19 patients, to St. Joseph Regional Health Center in Bryan. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services provided the case to DSHS.
DSHS will allocate 125 cases of Remdesivir's liquid form across Texas, providing enough of the drug to treat approximately 500 patients. The number of cases each hospital will receive is based on their hospitalized COVID patient totals along with their county's total.
Hospitals without ICU beds were excluded from the distribution as the drug is being prioritized for severely ill patients in ICU facilities. Remdesivir cannot be used for children, also excluding children's hospitals from the distribution.