Dexamethasone is an inexpensive and easily available drug that can cure the lives of coronavirus infected patients. UK researchers said that a very low dose of Dexamethasone treatment is a massive discovery against coronavirus. Moreover, the steroid trial is one of the world’s largest with existing testing trials. Now it is to monitor if it works for coronavirus.
The ventilator patient’s death risk is cut by a third by this drug. Moreover, patients who are on oxygen are going to have less risk of death by a fifth.
There were 5000 lives that could have been saved if the UK had started to use Dexamethasone from the beginning of this pandemic as health analysts say.
Many poor countries can have a tremendous amount of benefits. Those countries have a high number of coronavirus infected patients.
NHS will develop dexamethasone to help more patients. The UK officials have 200,000 dexamethasones in stock.
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The recovery rate from Dexamethasone
Prime minister Boris Johnson said that this discovery is worthy of celebration. It is a stupendous British scientific achievement. They took necessary measures to make sure that there would be enough supplies even if there would be a resurgence of the second wave of coronavirus.
Professor Chris Whitty, chief medical officer of England said that this drug can save the world. Moreover, there are 19 out of 20 infected people are recovered. They don’t happen to go to the hospital.
Those patients who went to the hospital and needed oxygen or ventilator are recovering from coronavirus. Moreover, Dexamethasone happens to cut risk in a high amount for these patients.
There are other diseases like arthritis, asthma, and some skin conditions where the inflammation has been reduced by this drug.
This treatment is preventing damages to the body’s immune system which is at risk due to coronavirus. Dexamethasone fights the coronavirus effectively.
Research suggests
Cytokine storm is an overreaction of the same drug can be harmful. Oxford University led a trial on 2000 hospital patients. They gave dexamethasone to them and their comparison was with other 4000 patients who didn’t have the doses of dexamethasone. Further, the risk of death is reduced from 40% to 28% for ventilator patients. Moreover, it cuts the death risk from 25% to 20% for those patients who are in need of oxygen.
Chief investigator Professor Peter Horny said that dexamethasone is the only drug that showed such a reduction in mortality rate. It reduced it in high amounts calling it a breakthrough.
Lead researchers Professor Martin Landry said that the research showed that one life can be saved for:
- Every 8 patients on a ventilation
- Every 20-25 patients having oxygen
- He said that It is absolutely beneficial for the patients.
The total treatment goes for ten days and costs approximately £5 for each patient for the total amount of dexamethasone treatment. So the total cost reaches almost £35 to save a coronavirus infected patient.
Measures to consume the drug
Dexamethasone is a widely available drug worldwide. Professor Landray said patients in hospitals should get this drug inappropriate time. But there must be measures before having the doses. People should not take it home after they buy from the market.
Patients with milder symptoms of the virus don’t happen to have any help from dexamethasone, especially those who don’t have any breathing problems.
The trial for recovery from coronavirus has started in March. The research looked into hydroxychloroquine which is used for malaria, but it failed. The side effects of it were heart problems and also increases other fatalities.
NHS is trying to make available the antiviral drug Remdesivir. It reduces the recovery time of the patients with coronavirus. There is a lot of expensive medicine that is old and cheap-as-chips steroid which could cut death risk but not as patient-friendly.
So it is a very much celebration as this dexamethasone can help patients all around the world immediately. This is the reason all the top-line results of this trial gone out. It has a huge implication level worldwide.
Usage of Dexamethasone
People used dexamethasone from the early 1960s for curing rheumatoid arthritis and asthma. There will be a huge impact when the death risk of COVID-19 patients will be reduced by half. Otherwise, even in ventilators, they could not survive.
Dexamethasone is given intravenously in intensive care and in tablet form to less effected coronavirus patients.
Ebola anti-drug Remdesivir is the only drug proven to work for COVID-19 patients. The drug has reduced the recovery days of coronavirus patients from 15 to 11 days. But there was hardly any evidence to prove that it reduced mortality rate. The price of Remdesivir is yet to be announced. However, it is sold in limited supplies as dexamethasone is still not available to the masses.
