A £5 steroid, Dexamethasone, has been found to reduce the deaths of Covid-19 patients on ventilators and will be rolled out within 24 hours.
The anti-inflammatory medication normally used to treat arthritis, severe allergies and asthma, is the first drug that has been shown to save lives and experts hailed the results as a ‘major breakthrough.’
The drug was given either orally or through an IV. After 28 days, it had reduced deaths by 35% in patients who needed treatment with breathing machines and by 20% in those only needing supplemental oxygen. It did not appear to help less ill patients.
“This is an extremely welcome result,” one study leader, Peter Horby of the University of Oxford, said in a statement. “The survival benefit is clear and large in those patients who are sick enough to require oxygen treatment, so dexamethasone should now become standard of care in these patients. Dexamethasone is inexpensive, on the shelf, and can be used immediately to save lives worldwide.”
