An actual life saving drug to treat COVID-19

Discussion in 'Politics' started by gwb-trading, Jun 16, 2020.

  1. gwb-trading

    gwb-trading

    Coronavirus: Dexamethasone proves first life-saving drug
    BBC - https://tinyurl.com/y9kor565

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

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

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

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

    Had the drug had been used to treat patients in the UK from the start of the pandemic, up to 5,000 lives could have been saved, researchers say.

    And it could be of huge benefit in poorer countries with high numbers of Covid-19 patients.

    About 19 out of 20 patients with coronavirus recover without being admitted to hospital. Of those who are admitted to hospital, most also recover, but some may need oxygen or mechanical ventilation. These are the high-risk patients whom dexamethasone appears to help.

    The drug is already used to reduce inflammation in a range of other conditions, and it appears that it helps stop some of the damage that can happen when the body's immune system goes into overdrive as it tries to fight off coronavirus.

    The body's over-reaction is called a cytokine storm and it can be deadly.

    In the trial, led by a team from Oxford University, around 2,000 hospital patients were given dexamethasone and were compared with more than 4,000 who did not receive the drug.

    For patients on ventilators, it cut the risk of death from 40% to 28%. For patients needing oxygen, it cut the risk of death from 25% to 20%.

    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.

    Dexamethasone does not appear to help people with milder symptoms of coronavirus - those who don't need help with their breathing.

    The Recovery Trial has been running since March. It included the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine which has subsequently been ditched amid concerns that it increases fatalities and heart problems.

    Another drug called remdesivir, an antiviral treatment that appears to shorten recovery time for people with coronavirus, is already being made available on the NHS.

    The first drug proven to cut deaths from Covid-19 is not some new, expensive medicine but an old, cheap-as-chips steroid.

    That is something to celebrate because it means patients across the world could benefit immediately. That's why the top-line results of this trial have been rushed out - because the implications are so huge globally.

    Dexamethasone has been used since the early 1960s to treat a wide range of conditions, such as rheumatoid arthritis and asthma. Half of all Covid patients who require a ventilator do not survive, so cutting that risk by a third would have a huge impact.

    The drug is given intravenously in intensive care, and in tablet form for less seriously ill patients. So far, the only other drug proven to benefit Covid patients is remdesivir, an antiviral treatment which has been used for Ebola.

    That has been shown to reduce the duration of coronavirus symptoms from 15 days to 11, but the evidence was not strong enough to show whether it reduced mortality. Unlike dexamethasone, remdesivir is a new drug with limited supplies and a price has yet to be announced.
     
  2. Bugenhagen

    Bugenhagen

    Well now, I open a thread so do you but neither gets a sniff despite them being about a profoundly important therapy breakthrough.

    Go figger.

    Knock knock.
    Whos there?
    The third of patients who would survive.
    No your not, due to misguided policies your already dead.
     
    gwb-trading likes this.
  3. Bugenhagen

    Bugenhagen

    Well my regular pharmacist (I'm in there a lot to buy mostly icecreams as close to home) sent me a WhatsApp asking me if I wanted some of it... Remember there is little to nothing restricting drug sales except for opoids here. All legal.

    So now I'm the owner of a box (I'll pick it up tomorrow maybe) and.. It like the Paquinol hydroxychloroquine I have, its another Sanofi product. Little worried about that.. Fool me twice.. though I'm still holding their stock.

    IMG-20200616-WA0014.jpg
     
  4. Because I remember reading this exact same line about whatever the fuck it was...
    "A cheap and widely available drug can help save the lives of patients seriously ill with coronavirus."

    In a week it won't work so well, then what? The studies will get larger and the benefits will not be so impressive, then what? I passed giving a shit about any of this Covid bullshit. Get it, you get it. Die, you die. It's all be complete bullshit from the beginning. Remove all the nursing home patients they killed with incompetence, eliminate those who were on their fucking death beds to begin with and what are we left with? A season of the fucking flu.
     
  5. I still don't understand how you didn't go into medicine.
     
    Bugenhagen, Cuddles and Tony Stark like this.




  6. But you know better?
     
    Bugenhagen likes this.
  7. Bugenhagen

    Bugenhagen

    During WWII the number of disheartening fuckups was huge for the allies. HCL does work a little as an anti-inflammatory and zinc does work a little for people who would be fine anyway, it causes way too much stress on people who are actually very ill on average. In vitro (in lab) vs vivo (real body) the specific molecular action of the two is not enough, very common problem. That said elderly people tend to be zinc deficient so taking zinc is a good idea on its own.

    This steroid is old school for lung infections and the trial while still not peer reviewed is part of a massive effort on multiple drugs. So reason to hope Dr Captain but still be wary.

    2/3 of people still die best case so no resting yet.
     
    Last edited: Jun 17, 2020
  8. gwb-trading

    gwb-trading

    Ever since the U.S. medical community was burned on hydroxychloroquine being a beneficial treatment for COVID-19 --- they are adopting a more cautious approach to dexamethasone, demanding to see data demonstrating it is effective.

    Show me the data: U.S. doctors skeptical of reported COVID breakthrough
    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-steroid-data-idUSKBN23N3ER

    The report on Tuesday of a powerful treatment for the new coronavirus brought skepticism along with optimism among U.S. doctors, who said the recent withdrawal of an influential COVID-19 study left them wanting to see more data.

    Global pressure to find a cure or vaccine has accelerated the process of reporting coronavirus study results, feeding confusion over whether therapies have been proven effective. One influential COVID study was withdrawn this month by respected British medical journal The Lancet over data concerns.

    Researchers in Britain said dexamethasone, used to fight inflammation in other diseases, reduced death rates of the most severely ill COVID-19 patients by around a third, and they would work to publish full details as soon as possible.

    But hours later South Korea’s top health official cautioned about the use of the drug for COVID-19 patients due to potential side effects.

    “We have been burned before, not just during the coronavirus pandemic but even pre-COVID, with exciting results that when we have access to the data are not as convincing,” said Dr. Kathryn Hibbert, director of the medical intensive care unit at Harvard’s Massachusetts General Hospital.

    Hibbert said published data would help her evaluate the findings and see which patients benefited the most and at what dose.

    “I am very hopeful this is true because it would be a huge step forward in being able to help our patients,” she said, but added she would not change practice at this point.

    Steroids can suppress immune systems, warned Dr. Thomas McGinn, deputy physician-in-chief at New York’s largest healthcare system, Northwell Health where, he told Reuters, physicians are using steroids on a case-by-case basis.

    “We have to see what the study looks like given the current environment of retractions,” said McGinn. “I just wait to see the real data, see if it’s peer reviewed and gets published in a real journal, he said.

    University of Washington professor of medicine Dr Mark Wurfel urged the researchers to put out data before official publication.

    “That would be very, very helpful in terms of helping us align our patient populations with theirs and decide whether it’s appropriate to apply this therapy to our patients.”
     
    Bugenhagen likes this.
  9. Bugenhagen

    Bugenhagen

    We shall see soon enough, reading comments on US news sources something is painfully clear again, that the vocal boomers in the US are particularly attuned to judging things on simply whether they are entertaining or not. Waldorf and Statler nation.

    Thankfully the US is not a lot of the world. Quite a lot of brilliant people drawn from the planet there but still mostly softer brained locals on the comments.

    If Boris has forced a populist gun jumping, he is finished (again) but as bad as he is, he is not Donny and Pence.
     
    Last edited: Jun 17, 2020