Impressive Coronavirus Breakthrough: First Life Saving Drug Found
Scientists at Oxford University have discovered the use of this drug for treating patients who have sever respiratory issues. Dexamethasone which has been used in treatment of asthma, allergies is now being used to treat patients with extremely COVID19 infection.
Dexamethasone is a cost-effective and easily available drug. Using this on Covid-19 patients with respiratory complications has reduced the death rate by one third. Test was carried in NSH Hospital in United Kingdom on around 2.6k people. They were given a 6MG dose of the steroid drug every day for ten days. The results were compared with the patients who were being treated without the drug. Dexamethasone worked effectively on people who were either on ventilators or getting oxygen support. It reduced death rate among the ventilated people by one third, and in those who got oxygen supply, by one fifth. The drug however yielded no positive results in patients who did not have any respiratory complications.
In India, dexamethasone and is widely used to treat sepsis. The injection is extremely cheap and just costs around Rs. 5. India has been using steroid methyl prednisolone while treating people with respiratory complications. After this impressive outcome shown by the use of Dexamethasone in United Kingdom, it was apporoved to be used for treatment of COVID19 patients. In fact, it is one of the first drug to be used as recovery drug in case of Coronavirus.
One should remember that United Kingdom was one of the worst affected country by Coronavirus initially. The number of positive cases and the death rates increased exponentially in the initial days. However,the country was able to bring the virus under control. Till date there has been 298K confirmed cases in United Kingdom with around 42K deaths. However, the daily number of positive cases have been brought under control. On 15th of June, there were only 968 cases reported in the country. Worldwide the total number of cases stands at 7.94 Million with 435K deaths reported.
It must be noted that, of the total reported cases around the world, at present there are around 3.4 Million active cases. Of the active only 2% are reported to be critical, that is around 54,600 patients.
India has witnessed a high surge in cases post the unlocking phase 1. The Prime Minister is holding a two-day conference with state CMs on 16 and 17th June to discuss the condition of coronavirus in the country. With nearly 3.5 lakh cases, the situation isn’t seeming to be under control. The healthcare system is extremely overburdened, and a treatment drug or vaccine is just the need of the hour.