Limited amounts of the experimental drug remdesivir are arriving in the D.C. region distributed by the federal government, sparking hope it could speed up recovery from COVID-19. The drug, however, remains scarce and health experts say its benefits are not clear.

Julian Walker, spokesman for the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association, said 55 hospitals in the state have obtained enough remdesivir to treat about 650 patients in total. There are 1,536 hospitalized patients in Virginia with COVID-19 or with COVID-19 tests pending, according to the VHHA. The drug is distributed via a lottery system, according to the Virginia Department of Health.

Maryanne Boster, a spokeswoman for the Virginia Hospital Center, said her Arlington hospital received “a select number of doses” of the drug and was participating in a national clinical trial to evaluate its safety and effectiveness.

“We believe we have enough remdesivir to take care of many of the sickest patients; however, VHC, like every hospital, does not have enough at this time to administer remdesivir to every patient,” she wrote in an email to WAMU/DCist.

Remdesivir is an antiviral drug made by Gilead Sciences, Inc., based in Foster City, Calif. On May 1 Gilead announced it received Food and Drug Administration emergency use authorization to treat hospitalized patients with severe COVID-19. This is not full-fledged approval; rather, temporary permission to use the drug while clinical trials are ongoing.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced earlier this month that Gilead committed to donating 607,000 vials of the drug in the U.S., to treat about 78,000 hospitalized COVID-19 patients. It is part of a broader 1.5 million-vial donation Gilead announced it would supply worldwide.

The D.C. Department of Health told WAMU/DCist it received 1,700 vials of the drug; Gilead says between six and 11 vials are needed per patient.

Maryland Department of Health spokesman Charles Gischlar told WAMU/DCist that his office received two shipments of remdesivir that could treat just over 600 patients.

The drug could help make COVID-19 more manageable. However, many questions remain. Dr. Hana Akselrod, an infectious disease physician at George Washington University Hospital, said the drug works by interfering with how the coronavirus makes copies of itself. She said preliminary information from a National Institutes of Health trial showed promising results in shortening the duration of illness by about a third. Further, she said the trial showed a modest drop in patient mortality from COVID-19. However, she said questions remain about risks and side effects.

“The best way to understand it right now is as a rough draft,” she said of the drug. In particular, she said she had questions about which patients would benefit from remdesivir and what the best timing would be for administering the drug.

“From what we know about its mechanism, it acts directly to block the replication mechanism of the virus. So it would stand to reason that you want to give it early, or during the phase of the disease when the virus is most active,” she said. “We want to identify this window in which people would benefit from this drug but before they are so sick that there is runaway damage and they could not recover.”

On Tuesday the Virginia Department of Health released the names of hospitals that either received or would receive doses of remdesivir, as was first reported in the Virginia Mercury. A number of Northern Virginia facilities were named, including Reston Hospital Center, Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center, Prince William Medical Center, Virginia Hospital Center, Fauquier Hospital, and the Inova Health System.

Politico reports that Gilead received $70 million in federal dollars and help from the National Institutes of Health to run clinical trials. The company has not yet set a price for the drug once its donations run out.