Known Drug Found To Treat Covid 19

An Oxford University trial has discovered that around two thousand hospital patients who suffered with breathing difficulties and other complications due to Coronavirus, have seen a marked improvement thanks to a cheap and widely used steroid. Dexamethasone is a steroid which is normally given to prevent the release of substances in the body that cause inflammation. It is also used treat many different conditions such as allergic disorders, skin conditions, ulcerative colitis, arthritis, lupus, psoriasis, or breathing disorders.

The steroid has many side effects which include:

fluid retention (swelling in your hands or ankles);

increased appetite;

mood changes, trouble sleeping;

skin rash, bruising or discolouration;

acne, increased sweating, increased hair growth;

headache, dizziness;

nausea, vomiting, upset stomach;

So it is very important to always listen to your doctor and follow all the advice that they give you. The drug is only available on a prescription basis and is only effective when a person displays symptoms of the virus. It cannot be taken as a prophylactic drug.

In the trial, led by a team from Oxford University, about 2,000 hospital patients were given dexamethasone and compared with more than 4,000 who were not.

For patients on ventilators, it cut the risk of death from 40% to 28%.

For patients needing oxygen, it cut the risk of death from 25% to 20%.

Chief investigator Prof Peter Horby said: "This is the only drug so far that has been shown to reduce mortality - and it reduces it significantly. It's a major breakthrough."

Lead researcher Prof Martin Landray said the findings suggested one life could be saved for:

every eight patients on a ventilator

every 20-25 treated with oxygen

"There is a clear, clear benefit," he said.

"The treatment is up to 10 days of dexamethasone and it costs about £5 per patient.

"So essentially it costs £35 to save a life.

"This is a drug that is globally available."

When appropriate, hospital patients should now be given it without delay, Prof Landray said.

But people should not go out and buy it to take at home.

Dexamethasone does not appear to help people with milder symptoms of coronavirus who do not need help with their breathing.

A total of 2104 patients were randomised to receive dexamethasone 6 mg once per day (either by mouth or by intravenous injection) for ten days and were compared with 4321 patients randomised to usual care alone. Among the patients who received usual care alone, 28-day mortality was highest in those who required ventilation (41%), intermediate in those patients who required oxygen only (25%), and lowest among those who did not require any respiratory intervention (13%).

Dexamethasone reduced deaths by one-third in ventilated patients (rate ratio 0.65 [95% confidence interval 0.48 to 0.88]; p=0.0003) and by one fifth in other patients receiving oxygen only (0.80 [0.67 to 0.96]; p=0.0021). There was no benefit among those patients who did not require respiratory support (1.22 [0.86 to 1.75; p=0.14).

Apart from using Dexamethasone, there are still more trials on going to see if any other treatments can be found that may work similarly or better than the steroid as their may be a point in the future when the treatment could fail. There is still on going research and discovery to see if a vaccine for Coronavirus could be found because having a treatment that you can only have in hospital when you have symptoms won't make people feel completely safe. The only way this can happen is if they have a vaccine and build up their own immunity to the virus. Nobody knows however, how long this will take to develop. It may be a few months or may even be a few years.