By Researchers find life-saving coronavirus drug
Researchers at Oxford University have identified a cheap and widely available drug called dexamethasone as potentially life-saving for patients who are seriously ill with coronavirus.
Experts in the UK have said that the low-dose steroid treatment is a major breakthrough in the fight against the deadly virus.
A ten-day course of treatment is reccomended, and the drug costs only £5 per dose.
The drug cuts the risk of death by a third for patients on ventilators.
For those on oxygen, it cut deaths by a fifth.
The drug is currently part of the biggest trials of existing medicines to test whether they also work for coronavirus.
Researchers have estimated that if the drug had been available in the UK from the start of the coronavirus pandemic up to 5,000 lives could have been saved.
As part of the trial, around 2,000 hospital patients were given dexamethasone and were compared with nearly 4,000 who did not get the drug.
For patients on ventilators it cut death risk from 40% to 28%.
For patients needing oxygen it cut death risk 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 added that the findings suggest that for every eight patients needing ventilators that you treat, you could save one life.
In patients on oxygen, you save one life for every 20-25 or so treated with the drug.
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