Dexamethasone trial shows useful results against coronavirus. UK initiated this remarkable move internationally and the drug proves to be used on NHS at the moment.
What is Dexamethasone?
The Dexamethasone drug is a type of steroid. It reduces the inflammatory signs by making the human body produce hormones that can fight the coronavirus infection.
Dexamethasone working process
Trials showed that Dexamethasone works by reducing the immune system of the human body.
COVID-19 virus infection accelerates the inflammatory signs in the body and the body itself tries to combat the virus. This fight is causing problems in the immunity structure. The result of it becomes dangerous. The reaction hits the human body’s cells at the end of it.
Dexamethasone reduces the whole effect of this combat in the human’s body. The drug is only for severely affected patients who are in need of oxygen and surviving through ventilation.
It is not working on patients with lesser symptoms as defeating their immune system would not be a desirable thing to do.
Dexamethasone’s efficiency
Scientists found in the study that Dexamethasone could have the potential to save one patient among three who are using ventilators while fighting against COVID-19.
Patients using oxygen have probability to survive and the rate is one out of five patients. However, the coronavirus victims having no problem in their respiratory system will get no such support from Dexamethasone.
Coronavirus drug trial in the UK
Oxford University leads this trial with Randomized Evaluation of COVID-19 Therapy and brings the recovery results. Scientists are researching if other medicines can work towards handling other health conditions can this drug be used for coronavirus or not.
The researchers have studied by giving 6 mg of Dexamethasone dosage regularly to the 2,100 coronavirus infected patients over 10 days. Health analysts are continuously monitoring those patients’ samples with random 4300 patients’ who are not into the trial.
There is hope that using Dexamethasone with other doses of drugs could decrease deaths far more efficiently. Ailing or aging adults can also use this drug. However, Pregnant women and mothers who are breastfeeding should avoid the drug.
Low cost and easily available
The cost of Dexamethasone is inexpensive and is easily available in the market. According to the UK government, there is a sufficient amount of Dexamethasone stock for 200,000 patients affected by the coronavirus. They have piled these stocks after seeing the remarkable results. The treatment would take 10 days and cost around 5.40 pounds for each patient per day.
Dexamethasone was discovered in 1957 and it was available in the market from 1960 in the UK. There is no patent issue for this drug due to its long time availability. Dexamethasone can be made by a lot of companies because of this reason. So, it is easily available in the market.
The Department of Health and Social Care said that the UK government put this drug into the parallel export list of the country. This move bans buying and selling these medicine which are only for UK patients. The high price selling was aimed at gaining higher profits from different countries.
The world’s reaction to the trial
World Health Organization approved this trial process. They want to explore more options for patients with lesser symptoms. The results are going to benefit for those countries with developing economies also.
African countries can buy this drug by spending less than 2 dollars when this would be available for them.
South African government got advice which suggested them to use Dexamethasone for severely infected patients. Their country also manufactures this drug.
According to WHO Africa has seen above five thousand deaths due to coronavirus. Most of those patients had serious health conditions and needed oxygen and ventilation.
What is dexamethasone used for?
Dexamethasone can also work for other health conditions like asthma which causes respiratory problems, the swelling of the human body, allergies, joint pains. The drug can also save the immune system from going overdrive.
The drug is very efficient for the automatic cure of the immune system which can fight problems like arthritis. Moreover, the immune system attacks the body mistakenly in lupus or rheumatoid arthritis. Thus, this drug can help resolve severe problems and improve our immune health.
Dexamethasone side effects
Patients with other health conditions except coronavirus infection can have side effects like anxiety, weight gain, lack of sleeping, fluid retention, and more from Dexamethasone.
There are uncommon side effects also as hemorrhage, eye disorders, and blurred vision. The coronavirus patients need a very limited amount of dose of Dexamethasone. It would not provide any side effects then for those patients.
The Chief Medical Officer of England claimed that the study found that drug is quite harmless for the patients.
Can others steroid work similarly like Dexamethasone
Professor Peter Horby, the chief of the research UK, said that there is controversy if the other steroids can work for respiratory inflammation like coronavirus infection or not. He said there lies a huge argument in this regard.
Researchers are also exploring other steroids like methylprednisolone with coronavirus patients for getting efficient results sooner.
There were some trials done to check if other steroids could cure Sars. The results were mixed as some showed positive reports while others didn’t.
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