In a randomized and cheap clinical trial organized in the United Kingdom it has been found that an inexpensive and commonly used steroid – Dexamethasone is shown to have reduced have reduced the death rate from COVID 19 which has killed almost 4.3 lak people globally. The recovery trail was launched in the month of March. Where 2100 participants took part and received the drug at a low or moderate dose of six milligrams per day for ten days. Later they were compared on how they fared against about 4,300 people who received standard care for coronavirus infection.

Substantial effect was witnessed in critically ill patients on ventilators. It was seen that the people who were receiving oxygen also saw improvement – their risk of dying was reduced by 20%. But the steroid was found to have no effect on the people who had mild symptoms of COVID 19 or were not on ventilators.  Owning to miraculous results of the drug, the United Kingdom has announced the immediate authorized use of the drug Dexamethasone for patients who have been hospitalized for COVID 19, who require oxygen and also for those who are on ventilators.

While the treatment guidelines from the WHO and many other countries cautioned on the use of steroids for treating people with coronavirus, and some investigators were concerned about anecdotal reports of widespread steroid treatment. This because such drugs suppress the immune system, which could provide some relief from patients whose lungs are ravaged by an over-active immune response that sometimes manifests in severe cases of COVID-19. But such patients may still need a fully functioning immune system to fend off the virus itself. But the recovery trials suggest that the benefits of the steroid outweigh its harmful effects.

So far, the only drug shown to benefit COVID-19 patients in a large, randomized, controlled clinical trial is the antiviral drug remdesivir. Although remdesivir1 was shown to shorten the amount of time that patients may need to spend in the hospital, it did not have a statistically significant effect on deaths.