... as British study finds drug can slash death risk by a fifth

BRITISH scientists have discovered a cheap drug which improves recovery chances for nearly every coronavirus patient it is given to.

Hydrocortisone – a drug so wellestablished that it is one of the first treatments trainee doctors learn about in medical school – improves outcomes in at least 93 per cent of severely ill Covid patients.

When given to those in intensive care, it cuts deaths by a fifth, researchers found. It is only the second drug proven to save the lives of Covid-19 patients.

The news comes after Oxford scien

tists discovered that dexamethasone – a different drug in the same ‘corticosteroid’ class – dramatically improved survival chances.

The discovery of a second treatment gives doctors another option and ensures there will be less pressure on supplies, experts said.

The findings from the NHS National Institute for Health Research centre at Bristol University, published in the Jama medical journal, reveal hydrocortisone and dexamethasone each cut the chance of death from 40 to 32 per cent – an improvement of a fifth. NHS England’s chief executive Sir Simon Stevens said the development will provide us with ‘a further weapon in the armoury in the worldwide fight’.

Hydrocortisone, which is usually given in tablet form, costs just £2.60 a day for the 200mg dose found to be effective. Bristol professor Jonathan Sterne said: ‘The results show benefit regardless of age or sex.’