A major breakthrough towards the treatment of the novel coronavirus has come in the form of Dexamethasone. This is a generic steroid which is used in the treatment of other diseases to reduce inflammation.
The use of this drug for COVID 19 was put forward by scientists in UK, and had claimed that the drug can help recover critical covid patients in a “1 in 3” ratio.
Oxford study shows low-cost COVID-19 drug improves survival rate in hospitalised patients with severe respiratory complications. Dexamethasone is the first treatment demonstrated to reduce #COVID19 mortality & is already widely available around the world: https://t.co/HHGV9KlcnV pic.twitter.com/m6GYQTmrv0
— University of Oxford (@UniofOxford) June 16, 2020
The same study had found earlier this month that the malaria drug hydroxychlorique was not working against COVID-19.
This trial, however, was by a team from Oxford University, in which 2104 patients were given dexamethasone and were compared with 4321 patients who were not given the drug. The drug was shown to cut the risk of death by a third for the patients on ventilators and by a fifth for those on oxygen.
Though, there is still no definite cure for the Virus that has killed more than 4,31,000 globally.
This article has been contributed by Arnav Hoon, a 12th standard student from The Shri Ram School, Gurugram