Developments 6 months after first cases

SIX months have passed since the World Health Organisation (WHO) received the first reports of a cluster of pneumonia cases of unknown cause in China.

The half-year anniversary of the Covid-19 outbreak yesterday coincided with reaching 10 million cases and 500 000 deaths.

WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at this stage providing oxygen and dexamethasone to people with severe and critical disease saves lives.

Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize announced that dexamethasone would be used to treat critically ill Covid-19 patients in the country.

Ghebreyesus said: “The singlemost important intervention for breaking chains of transmission is not necessarily hi-tech, and can be carried out by a broad range of professionals. It’s tracing and quarantining contacts.

“Many countries actually have used non-health professionals to do contact tracing. Third, save lives. Early identification and clinical care saves lives. Providing oxygen and dexamethasone to people with severe and critical disease saves lives. And paying special attention to high-risk groups, including elderly people in long-term care facilities, saves lives.”

He said for the past six months, WHO and its partners had worked to support all countries to prepare for and respond to the new virus.

Ghebreyesus said: “We have worked with researchers, clinicians and other experts to bring together the evolving science and distil it into guidance. Millions of health workers have enrolled in courses through our OpenWHO.org online learning platform. We launched the Solidarity Trial to find answers fast to which drugs are the most effective. We launched Solidarity Flights, to ship millions of test kits and tons of personal protective equipment to many countries.”

Mkhize said the country’s healthcare workers were familiar with dexamethasone, having used it for decades as a registered medicine in South Africa.

“We are immediately able to offer it to all patients who need intravenous dexamethasone. We have checked our stock and we currently have around 300 000 ampoules in the country. This is one of those medicines where we do have excellent local capacity. There are three major suppliers of intravenous dexamethasone in the country.”

Meanwhile, a global trial designed to test whether the antimalaria drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine can prevent infection with Covid-19 is to restart, after being approved by British regulators.

The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency took its decision on what is known as the CopCov trial after hydroxychloroquine was found in another British trial to have no benefit as a treatment for patients already infected with Covid-19.

The study was paused pending review after the trial results.