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The BBC states, ‘A cheap and widely available drug can help save the lives of patients seriously ill with coronavirus.’ Dexamethasone is a low-dose and low-cost steroid treatment that substantially lowers inflammation. Cutting the risk of death with patients on supplemental oxygen support by 20 per cent and with patients on ventilators by 35 per cent, dexamethasone is indeed an initial breakthrough. The trail for the efficacy of this drug was conducted by a team of researchers from Oxford University where ‘about 2,000 hospital patients were given dexamethasone and compared with more than 4,000 who were not.’
The price of dexamethasone, a 60-year-old medicine, is incredibly low and should ideally be extremely accessible to all parts of the world. In the UK, the drug costs £5 for one patient. Research investigators from the ‘RECOVERY’ trial, which stands for ‘Randomised Evaluation of COVID-19 therapy’, announced their optimistic findings and released a news statement outlining the progress they have made.
However, there has been a fair degree of criticism towards medical journals publishing their results far too soon. According to a TIME article which comments on the progression of dexamethasone, “researchers would want to get the news out as soon as possible, given the possibility that dexamethasone could, based on the results, save lives immediately. But some health experts are warning the public to interpret the results with caution—especially in light of a recent scandal in which two prominent medical journals, the Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine, had to retract high-profile studies on potential COVID-19 treatments due to suspect data.” A much-needed assessment of the drug overall is still needed. Deterrent tales such as those of the unsubstantiated use of hydroxychloroquine, a drug used to treat lupus and malaria, which was found out later to not be effective against COVID-19, could be referred to in the light of the same.
Very recently, WHO has welcomed the preliminary results about dexamethasone use in treating critically ill COVID-19 patients. Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General states, “This is the first treatment to be shown to reduce mortality in patients with COVID-19 requiring oxygen or ventilator support.” Dr Ghebreyesus supports the Government of the UK. WHO is also in the process of doing complete and thorough data analysis in the upcoming weeks.
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