A 14-year-old boy left critically ill by the coronavirus has survived his ordeal after being given the Ebola drug remdesivir, his family have revealed.
Jacob Tayel, from Ipswich, fell ill with what his mother assumed was a chest infection in March, and his 11-year-old brother, Isaac, was ill at the same time.
Dianne, their mother, phoned for an ambulance when both her sons’ conditions rapidly got worse and the two boys were in intensive care within 24 hours of one another.
Jacob was so ill he had to be transferred from Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge to Great Ormond Street, where doctors gave him remdesivir.
Remdesivir is a generic anti-viral drug which was originally develop as an attempt to cure Ebola years ago. It was shelved when scientists found better ways of tackling the disease, which is contained to Africa, but has made a comeback in the COVID-19 pandemic.
Clinical trials are happening worldwide to see whether the drug could help patients to recover from severe cases of the coronavirus disease.
It is one of the most promising existing medications for COVID-19 patients and the European Union could be on course to grant it emergency approval in the coming days.
Hospitals in the UK are using it to treat seriously ill patients, and a study done in China with the help of the University of Oxford earlier this year found that it could speed up people’s recovery – although it did not appear to do so significantly.
Dianne Tayel, from Ipswich, pictured with 14-year-old Jacob and 11-year-old Isaac, who both battled coronavirus in hospital
Speaking on BBC Breakfast this morning, Dianne Tayel explained: ‘I really felt, because we couldn’t get to the GP, that they needed antibiotics and if not they would go into sepsis, so this is what initially led me to deal 999.’
Both boys needed intensive care because they were so ill and, while Isaac’s condition remained stable, his older brother worsened quickly.
He had to be transferred to Great Ormond Street Hospital in the capital, which is one of the country’s – and the world’s – leading children’s hospitals.
Dianne recalled: ‘At the point that Jacob left Addenbrooke’s Hospital [in Cambridge] and was transported to Great Ormond Street Hospital [GOSH] we thought we’d lost him, so we thought it was the end and we felt like we were being prepared for that.
‘When he got to GOSH, within about 12 or 13 hours the infection team had made contact with me and started to talk to me about the possibility of remdesivir, then I felt a bit more hope at this point.
‘Both my husband and I were just grateful and really astounded that so many people of such calibre were having these conversations about Jacob to make him well.
Jacob was so ill he was treated with anti-Ebola drug remdesivir, which is not normally approved for use in the UK
‘At this point it was giving us hope which is something we’d lacked just days prior to this.’
Dr Karyn Moshal, a consultant in paediatric infectious diseases who helped treat Jacob at GOSH, said the team’s consensus was to try remdesivir, developed for the Ebola outbreaks in West Africa, to bring down his viral load.
‘We had to weigh up the risk benefit of using a drug which is essentially an investigational drug, what is known as the compassionate use drug,’ she told hosts Dan Walker and Louise Minchin.
‘We needed to present Jacob’s case to the pharmaceutical company that provides this drug in order to ask their permission to use it as we needed to provide justification for why we wanted to use it.
Dr Karyn Moshal, a consultant in paediatric infectious diseases who helped treat Jacob at GOSH, told BBC Breakfast hosts Dan Walker and Louise Minchin that the team’s consensus was to try remdesivir, developed for the Ebola outbreaks in West Africa, to bring down his viral load
‘Once we had their permission we had to go to the ethics committee of GOSH and discuss Jacob’s case with them and explain why as a group we had decided why this would be the best possible drug for him.’
Dr Moshal said the drug was instrumental in Jacob’s recovery, coupled with his ‘meticulous and excellent’ supportive care in ICU, because it brought down his viral load.
‘It was a combination of different teams and different drugs that made the difference for Jacob,’ she said.
‘In bringing down his viral load we were able to decrease the inflammation that was driven by his increased viral load and therefore assist in managing that process and decreasing his inflammation.’
Jacob is now recovering at home, having been clapped out of Ipswich Hospital (pictured)
Jacob admitted he had little idea how serious his condition was, adding: ‘Everything happened really quickly.
‘I was feeling that I almost wasn’t there while everything was happening. It was really confusing and I didn’t really know what was going on.
‘When I started to come out of my coma and I’d just woken up, I was very confused about where I was.
‘I wasn’t really allowed anything, you can’t eat in intensive care, so I was like, why am I not eating? I wasn’t told anything.’
Dr Moshal said the Ebola drug was instrumental in Jacob’s recovery, coupled with his ‘meticulous and excellent’ supportive care in ICU, because it brought down his viral load
Isaac said it’s ‘amazing’ to now have his big brother back home and recovering, while Dianne added she and her husband ‘cannot thank everybody who was involved in his care enough’.
‘They’ve all been phenomenal, from the minute that the ambulance crew turned up here to him being clapped out of Ipswich Hospital, and even now Ipswich Hospital is still very much involved in his aftercare, so it’s just great,’ she said.
‘We thank God every day that we were able to get our boys back.’