HHS: U.S. Public Health Service Strike Team Helps Treat Patients Infected with COVID-19 in Japan
“A team of specialized officers from the U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS) Commissioned Corps are working with the United States Embassy in Japan, the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, and Gilead Sciences Inc. to provide compassionate access use of an investigational antiviral treatment for severely ill patients in Japan who have COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. … This specialized team of Commissioned Corps officers, with clinical, scientific, international, and public health backgrounds, deployed on February 15 to Japan to assist in the management of hospitalized United States citizens with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Their mission is to identify seriously and critically ill patients for enrollment in a compassionate use trial so that patients with viral pneumonia could receive treatment with remdesivir, an investigational antiviral treatment developed by Gilead Sciences Inc…” (3/3).