There is a paucity of information on remdesivir (RDV)use in severe pediatric coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).We aimed to explore the effectiveness of RDV as the cumulative proportion of pediatric COVID-19patients deescalated from Day 5 of high dependency or intensive care unit (HD/ICU). All children ≤18 years admitted to Singapore's largest pediatric hospital from January1, 2020 to March 18, 2022 were reviewed retrospectively. Patients were included if they were positive for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)on reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction, required oxygen, and HD/ICU care. The characteristics and outcomes of those who received RDV or not (no-RDV)were compared. We reviewed 15 children with a median age of 2.5 years (interquartile range [IQR]: 0.8-11.0), of which 7 (46.7%) received RDV. There was no difference in cumulative proportion of children deescalated from Day 5 of HD/ICUcare in the RDV versus the no-RDVgroup (5/7, 70% vs. 7/8, 87.5%, p = 0.57). The RDV versus no-RDV group had higher disease severity, that is,WHO Ordinal Scale scores (median 6, IQR: 5-7 vs. 5, IQR: 4-5, p = 0.03), higher procalcitonin levels (ug/L) (median 4.31, IQR: 0.8-24.2 vs. 0.12, IQR: 0.09-0.26, p = 0.02), and longer HD/ICUcare days (median 5, IQR: 4-9, vs. 1, IQR: 1-4, p = 0.01). There was no significant difference in hospitalization days. There were no adverse events directly attributable to RDV. None died from COVID-19infection. Our observational analysis was unable to detect any clear benefit of RDV in terms of reducing duration in HD/ICU.RDV was well-tolerated in children with severe COVID-19.
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