WHO Welcomes the First COVID-19 Reducing Mortality Drug

Head of the World Health Organization called "life-saving scientific breakthrough" the results of British study on COVID-19 treatment with corticosteroid dexamethasone. Head of the World Health Organization called "life-saving scientific breakthrough" the results of British study on COVID-19 treatment with corticosteroid dexamethasone (WHO) Tedros Adhan Gebreyesus. Speaking in Geneva on Wednesday night, June 17, he congratulated the British government and the University of Oxford on "great news." According to the head of WHO, dexamethasone was the first drug to show "a decrease in mortality among patients with COVID-19 who need oxygen or a ventilator." For patients connected to ventilators dexamethasone treatment showed a one-third reduction in mortality and for patients requiring only oxygen one-fifth, was specified on the WHO website. Moreover, an advantage was observed only in those patients who suffered from severe SARS, the effect of dexamethasone on patients with a milder form of the disease was not so effective. Oxford University Study A total of 2104 patients were enrolled in the Oxford University study. Another 4,000 people participated in the control study without receiving the drug. Scientists suggest that dexamethasone can be a "surprisingly cheap" means of combating the coronavirus pandemic and can prevent every eighth death in severe patients with daily use. The full results of the study have not yet been published. Synthetic corticosteroid dexamethasone has been used since the 1960s, has anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressive effects and is used, inter alia, to treat cancer, allergies, arthritis and asthma. In 2017, dexamethasone was mentioned by the head of the independent commission of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), Richard Maclaren, talking about the doping concealment system in Russian football.