Scientists in Britain announced a major breakthrough in the battle against the coronavirus last week, reporting they had found the first drug to reduce deaths among critically ill COVID-19 patients.The results were first made public in a sparsely detailed news release. Now the full study, neither peer
Packages of Dexamethasone are displayed in a pharmacy, Tuesday, June 16, 2020, in Omaha, Neb. Researchers in England said Tuesday they have the first evidence that the drug can improve COVID-19 survival. The cheap, widely available steroid called dexamethasone reduced deaths by up to one third in severely ill hospitalized patients.
The drug “may harm some patients, and we’re not entirely sure which patients those are,” said Dr. Samuel Brown, an assistant professor of pulmonary and critical care medicine at University of Utah School of Medicine in Salt Lake City, who was not involved in the research. Dexamethasone was beneficial for those who had been sick for more than a week, reducing deaths by one-third among patients on mechanical ventilators and by one-fifth among patients receiving supplemental oxygen by other means.
“It’s almost like a disease with two phases,” Landray said in an interview. “A phase where the virus dominates, and the immunological phase, where the damage the immune system causes is dominant.” “In the later phase, the immune system is no longer your friend — it’s responsible for the lungs failing, and dampening it down with steroids helps the situation and improves the chance of survival.”
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