Dexamethasone: The first life-saving coronavirus drug?

Experts from the United Kingdom are saying that a low-dose treatment of Dexamethasone, a cheap and largely available drug, is showing positive results in saving lives of patients who are severely suffering from the coronavirus. The drug is supposedly reducing the risk of death by a third for people who’re on ventilation and by a fifth for those who’re on oxygen supply.

This drug has been used since the 1960s to treat different conditions, including asthma and rheumatoid arthritis.

Researchers are claiming that Dexamethasone works best for patients at a higher risk and can successfully be beneficial for poorer countries with ever-increasing positive cases of COVID-19. They are also claiming that up to 5,000 lives could have been saved had the drug been used earlier.

A team from the Oxford University conducted a trial earlier in which 2,000 patients were given the drug and were compared to over 4,000 patients who hadn’t received the drug. The risk of death was reduced down from 40 per cent to 28 per cent for patients on ventilators, and the risk of death was reduced from 25 per cent to 20 per cent for patients on oxygen supply.

The lead researcher, Prof. Martin Landray, has said that the results suggest that one out of eight patients on ventilators can be saved by using this drug. He also said that patients being treated in hospitals should be given the drug without any delay, but people should not go out of their way and buy and consume it at home. “There is a clear, clear benefit. 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 globally available drug,” he added.

The drug has also been effective in reducing damage which can happen when the body’s immune system goes into overdrive to fight the virus. Prof Peter Horby, the Chief Investigator, was quoted in a report from BBC, “This is the only drug so far that has been shown to reduce mortality - and it reduces it significantly. It’s a major breakthrough.” 

Though, the drug does not treat people with milder symptoms of the virus. In multiple other recovery trials which have been conducted since March, many drugs had been thought to be useful but later turned out to be quite the opposite. Malaria treating drug Hydroxychloroquine increased fatalities and heart problems.

By far, only one drug which has been effective in treating COVID-19 is an antiviral drug called Remdesivir, which has also been used to treat Ebola. Remdesivir has reduced the longevity of the virus but has not been effective in reducing mortality. The price of Remdesivir is yet to be announced.