Scientists in England claimed that they found the first evidence that a drug can improve the survival rate of a COVID-19 patient. It is a cheap, widely available steroid called dexamethasone, which reduced the death toll of severely ill patients in England by one-third.
The British government immediately authorized the drug's use across the United Kingdom's hospitals after its positive results were announced on Tuesday.
The researchers said that they would soon publish their results. Several independent experts noted that it is important to see the details of the drug to know how much difference it can make and for whom it will be most effective.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top infectious disease expert in the US, said that the discovery of the drug's effect on COVID-19 patients is good news.
"This is a significant improvement in the available therapeutic options that we have," Fauci said.
Researchers from the University of Oxford conducted a comprehensive, strict test on the drug to randomly assigned 2,104 patients and compared them with 4,321 patients getting only usual care.
It was administered orally or through an IV to patients for ten days. Then, after four weeks, they found that it significantly reduced deaths by 35% in patients being treated with breathing machines, and by 20% to those needing supplemental oxygen though the drug did not appear to help those less ill patients.
New Drug Will Save Many Lives
Until now, only remdesivir, a drug from Gilead Sciences, is known to help COVD-19 patients. According to a study conducted by the US National Institutes of Health, this drug shortens the recovery time of the patients by 31% to 11 days on average versus 15 days for those just given usual care.
Fauci noted that they are still unsure whether remdisivir could be used with dexamethasone or before or after it to give more benefit.
Virus expert Nick Cammack of the Wellcome Trust, a British charity that supports research, said that although dexamethasone only helps the severe cases, there will still be countless lives be saved globally, USA Today reports.
Moreover, Cammack said that with the breakthrough on the drug, there is no reason that it cannot be rolled out for the entire world.
There is no information on the drug's side effects, but researchers said that they only used a low dose and for a short time, which is considered safe.
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Research Is Continuing on Other Treatments
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center's health policy expert, Dr. Peter Bach, noted that 41% of those on breathing machines and 25% on oxygen alone in the study.
"The mortality rate seems to be way higher than it is in the US," according to Bach. It will be hard to use the data for the US patients. But it is good news for science that the right studies are done and that the drug works and is very affordable at $7.59 and available.
The Oxford study is the same study earlier this month that showed that hydroxychloroquine was not working against the coronavirus. The study used more than 11,000 patients in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland who were given either standard care or an addition of the several treatments.
As of now, research is continuing on other treatments that can prevent infection and severe illness.
"Ideally, we will find something that stops the disease from progressing to a more advanced stage," said Dr. Stephen Griffin, from the University of Leeds in England.
