Dexamethasone is first life-saving coronavirus drug

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A cheap and widely available drug called dexamethasone can help save the lives of patients who are seriously ill with coronavirus.

UK experts say the low-dose steroid treatment is a major breakthrough in the fight against the deadly virus.

It cut the risk of death by a third for patients on ventilators. For those on oxygen, it cut deaths by a fifth.

The drug is part of the world's biggest trial testing existing treatments to see if they also work for coronavirus.

Researchers estimate that if the drug had been used to treat patients in the UK from the start of the coronavirus pandemic up to 5,000 lives could have been saved. Because it is cheap, it could also be of huge benefit in poorer countries struggling with high numbers of Covid-19 patients.

Michelle Roberts, BBC

Wonderful news to begin the day.

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https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53061281

[Redhead14]

This makes some sense.  Dexamethasone is the drug that is carried by mountain climbers who scale extremely high altitude mountains to combat HAPE - High-Altitude Pulmonary Edema which essentially causes the sufferer to drown in their own fluids   Covid has the same effect.

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Yes, it helps high risk patients recover.

Chief investigator Prof Peter Horby said: "This is the only drug so far that has been shown to reduce mortality - and it reduces it significantly. It's a major breakthrough."

Lead researcher Prof Martin Landray says the findings suggest that for every eight patients treated on ventilators, you could save one life.

For those patients treated with oxygen, you save one life for approximately every 20-25 treated with the drug.

"There is a clear, clear benefit. The treatment is up to 10 days of dexamethasone and it costs about £5 per patient. So essentially it costs £35 to save a life. This is a drug that is globally available."

Prof Landray said, when appropriate, hospital patients should now be given it without delay, but people should not go out and buy it to take at home.