HARRIS CALLS ON HSE TO USE COVID MIRACLE MEDICINE
HEALTH Minister Simon Harris has said that he has told the HSE to make a new wonder drug available to treat Covid-19 symptoms.
Dexamethasone, a cheap steroid, has been shown in a British trial to reduce deaths among patients critically ill with the coronavirus.
Mr Harris told the Dáil that he has asked health authorities to quickly make the steroid available.
Trial results announced this week by researchers in Britain showed dexamethasone, used since the 1960s to reduce inflammation in diseases such as arthritis, cut death rates by around a third among the most severely ill Covid-19 patients admitted to hospital. Mr Harris told TDs that results from the University of Oxford indicated that lives could be saved with the therapy.
‘There was a significant trend showing that the greatest benefit was among those patients requiring ventilation. However, the university states that it is important to recognise that it found no evidence of benefit for patients who did not require oxygen and the study did not examine patients outside of a hospital setting.
‘We are awaiting the full details of the study. I have today asked the public health experts in my own Department to contact the HSE about our plans to make this already existing treatment available.’ The drug, which costs just 70c a day, can save thousands of lives, scientists revealed on Tuesday.
First used 60 years ago, dexamethasone is cheap, out of patent, in mass production and readily available. Professor Martin Landray, who coled the trial that produced the breakthrough in Britain, estimated that thousands of lives could have been saved had the drug been in use at the start of the pandemic.
Dr Jack Lambert, a consultant in infectious diseases at the Mater Hospital in Dublin, said the results of the study into dexamethasone are ‘a good first step’.
Though he cautioned that it was not the ultimate answer to the virus. He told RTÉ radio’s Drivetime this week that ‘28% of people dying is still a lot of people’.
However, the results of the trial – the biggest coronavirus study in the world – is one of the first real moments of hope in the crisis.
A spokeswoman for the HSE said that while it is not currently advocating the use of steroids in the treatment of this illness, it is advising that ‘clinicians be alert and aware of this information, and use steroids only where clinically indicated’.
‘Steroids, while very effective in certain conditions, are potent drugs, with a range of serious side-effects, including immunosuppression and are known to exacerbate some viral illnesses,’ said the spokeswoman.
‘Benefit to patients needing ventilation’