In a major breakthrough, two researchers from the United Kingdom (UK) have found that steroid drug dexamethasone is helpful in treating the critical patients of COVID-19 who are dependent on ventilators or oxygen.
Even though this may be a breakthrough, researchers have mentioned that the findings are still in the preliminary stage. With the rising number of COVID-19 cases, there has been a rush to find the proper vaccination for the virus.
In a virtual press conference, Martin Landray, who is one of the lead researchers of the Recovery Trial, a UK trial investigating potential COVID-19 treatments, mentioned this breakthrough as a highly statistically significant result.
WHO shared the new founding through a tweet and mentioned that dexamethasone can be life-saving for the critically ill COVID-19 patients.
WHO welcomes the initial clinical trial results from the #UnitedKingdom that show #dexamethasone, a corticosteroid, can be lifesaving for patients who are critically ill with #COVID19 👉 https://t.co/CmNea2XEKH
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) June 16, 2020
A clinical trial of Dexamethasone for COVID-19:
Martin Landray, one of the lead researchers of the Recovery Trial and the professor at the University of Oxford informed that this is a completely compelling result. If someone observes the patients who did not require ventilators but were on oxygen, there has been a significant risk reduction of about one-fifth.
He further informed that no benefit was observed in those patients who had COVID-19 and were in the hospital but whose lungs were working sufficiently well- they were not on ventilators and were not taking oxygen.
Landray added that in the trial focus was on the mortality, which can be affected by a drug in either direction but results on the patients on ventilators or oxygen were a clear benefit. They also looked if there were deaths due to other forms of infections, which are considered as risks, but the answer was no and there was no excess of any other particular cause of death.
How the trial was conducted?
Talking about the clinical trial, Landray stated that dexamethasone was provided at a dose of 6 mg once a day for up to 10 days. It was administered either as an injection or was taken orally. After providing the drug, no serious complications were seen among the patients of COVID-19.
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