Trial shows cheap steroid could significantly reduce Covid-19 deaths – VIDEO
Low doses of the generic steroid ‘Dexamethasone’, given to patients in hospital with Covid-19, has reportedly reduced death rates by about a third among those with the most severe symptoms, trial data showed yesterday. The results are being described as a “major breakthrough” by scientists conducting the UK-led clinical trial known as RECOVERY. They suggest the drug should immediately become standard care in patients treated in hospital with the virus.
“This result shows that if patients who have Covid-19 and are on ventilators or on oxygen are given Dexamethasone, it will save lives, and it will do so at a remarkably low cost.”
Martin Landray, an Oxford University professor, who is co-leading the trial, and his co-lead investigator Peter Horby, say Dexamethasone, a generic steroid widely used in other diseases to reduce inflammation, is “the only drug that’s so far shown to reduce mortality – and it reduces it significantly.”
“It is a major breakthrough”
There is currently no approved treatment or vaccine for Covid-19, which has killed more than 446,000 globally.
