New York, June 9 (IANS): US drug-maker Gilead Sciences's investigational anitiviral drug remdesivir reduced lung damage in rhesus macaque monkeys, said a study on Tuesday.

However, the remdesivir treatment did not reduce virus shedding from the upper respiratory tract of the animals, said the research published in the journal Nature.

Although the rhesus macaque model does not represent the severe disease observed in a proportion of Covid-19 patients, the findings support early remdesivir treatment initiation in Covid patients to prevent progression to pneumonia, said the researchers.

The study was carried out by Emmie de Wit from National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the US National Institutes of Health and colleagues.

The US Food and Drug Administration on May 1 issued an emergency use authorisation for remdesivir for the treatment of suspected or laboratory-confirmed Covid-19 in adults and children hospitalised with severe disease.

While there is limited information known about the safety and effectiveness of using remdesivir to treat people in the hospital with Covid-19, the investigational drug was earlier shown in a clinical trial to shorten the time to recovery in some patients.