Last week South Carolina received a limited supply of remdesivir, an antiviral drug that recently received FDA approval after it was shown to improve recovery times for COVID-19 patients. The Emergency Use Authorization provides for the use of remdesivir in the treatment of suspected or laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 in adults and children hospitalized with severe disease.

Over the weekend, DHEC implemented an emergency use remdesivir allocation process that resulted in 5-day dosage regimens being distributed to hospitals statewide for a limited number of COVID-19 positive patients. DHEC has worked with SCHA and a panel of clinical and health experts from around the state to develop a fair, equitable, patient-centered, and clinically sound process for allocation of this remdesivir supply.

Only licensed practitioners (MD, DO, NP, PA, PharmD) are eligible to request a 5-day treatment course of remdesivir through REDCap—a secure, HIPAA compliant software managed at MUSC. Preview this remdesivir request form before beginning the survey to better understand its criteria and any additional information required to process the request. You may wish to gather the information before beginning the survey itself.

Practitioners should enter as many patients as are eligible; however, a single patient case should only be entered into the system once (i.e. multiple practitioners should not submit requests for the same patient). It is best to designate one primary contact person for remdesivir supply per hospital campus, and SCHA has developed this survey to help identify these contacts at each site. This primary contact person can submit all patient requests on behalf of their facility and requesting practitioners.

The REDCap survey will remain open for the foreseeable future and DHEC will continue to review any new, complete applications by 12:00 p.m. ET daily to determine patient-specific allotment of remdesivir that same day. Treatment courses will ship from Columbia within 24 hours following daily determination of remdesivir allocation.

As remdesivir continues to show positive signs as a treatment for COVID-19, drugmaker Gilead Sciences has ramped up the number of vials it’s donating to the U.S. government to approximately 940,000 from 607,000, according to HHS.