evidence: There’s no evidence showing that remdesivir, the first treatment approved for COVID-19, killed patients taking the drug. The antiviral drug is still approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat the coronavirus that causes the disease. The FDA said it based its approval of the drug on three randomized controlled clinical trials. Remdesivir was one of four drugs used in a 2018 clinical trial against Ebola virus in Africa. It was found to be far less effective than two experimental drugs, but the trial did not show remdesivir killed patients.