More progress in COVID-19 treatment, vaccine as scientists get deeper understanding of virus

London: With the COVID-19 pandemic imposing huge impact on people’s daily life in Britain and other parts of the world, scientists are racing against time to get deeper understanding of the novel coronavirus while accelerating the development of new treatments and vaccines.

Through the British government backed RECOVERY (Randomised Evaluation of COVID-19 Therapy) trial, researchers have found that low-dose dexamethasone (a steroid treatment) reduces death in hospitalised patients with severe respiratory complications of COVID-19.

In this trial, a total of 2104 patients were randomised to receive 6mg of dexamethasone once per day (either by mouth or by intravenous injection) for 10 days and were compared with 4321 patients randomized to usual care alone, according to the University of Oxford, whose researchers are leading the trial.

Dexamethasone reduced deaths by one third in ventilated patients and by one fifth in other patients receiving oxygen only, but there was no benefit among those patients who did not require respiratory support, the results showed.

Based on these results, researchers believe that one death would be prevented by treatment of around eight ventilated patients or around 25 patients requiring oxygen alone.