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UK Announces Major Breakthrough in Treatment of COVID-19

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – The UK’s National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) has announced a “major breakthrough” in the treatment of patients who are seriously ill with COVID-19. On Twitter Tuesday the NIHR said a RECOVERY trial it supported showed that the steroid dexamethasone “significantly reduces” the risk of dying for coronavirus patients requiring respiratory intervention.

During the Randomized Evaluation of COVID-19 Therapy (RECOVERY) trial, 2,104 seriously ill patients were randomly assigned treatment with the common corticosteroid drug dexamethasone, a medicine used for rheumatoid arthritis and other inflammatory conditions. A control group of 4,321 patients received standard care without the steroid.

According to Scientific American, the trial results suggest treatment with dexamethasone would prevent death for one in eight people who have been ventilated and one in 25 of those who receive oxygen therapy.

Although the findings have not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal, international experts have welcomed the trial results. “This is a major, major breakthrough. I cannot overstate how important this is,” Sam Parnia, Director of Critical Care and Resuscitation Research at NYU Langone Health, told Scientific American. While Parnia acknowledged that neither he nor his peers had reviewed the published findings, he said: “This is coming from very reputable group, with a very large sample size.”

Britain’s Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty tweeted that the NIHR trial result was the “most important” for COVID-19 so far.