Treatment with low-dose dexamethasone corticosteroids can reduce the mortalidad of patients with coronavirus by up to a third.

This was announced yesterday by the British Minister for Health and Social Affairs, Matt Hancock, who announced the success of the first clinical trial for a treatment against Covid-19. 

The University of Oxford reported in a statement that the drug, which is part of the world's largest experiment to evaluate the effectiveness of existing treatments to deal with the virus, "decreased the risk of death in a third of patients assisted with mechanical ventilation", while "for those with oxygen, it reduced deaths by a fifth."

According to the researchers, if dexamethasose, a cheap medicine available worldwide , had been used to treat hospitalized patients with severe respiratory complications in the UK since the start of the pandemic, up to 5,000 lives could have been saved. 

The discovery came during the Randomized Evaluation of Covid-19 thERapY trial, which began in March. "This world first demonstrates the power of science," Hancock said in a post on Twitter, in which he took the opportunity to thank the research team, who in turn explained that the cheapness of the treatment could be beneficial for the most countries poor with a high number of patients with Covid-19 

Recovery trial:

In the trial Recovery involved 11,500 patients in over 175 hospitals in the NHS, the national health system. Peter Horby, professor of Emerging Infectious Diseases at the Nuffield Department of Medicine at the University of Oxford, and one of the main investigators of the trial, stated that "dexamethasone is the first drug that has been shown to improve survival in case by Covid-19"And added that" the survival benefit is clear in those patients who are sick enough to require oxygen treatment, so dexamethasone should now become the standard of care in these patients.

" Horby further explained that "Dexamethasone is inexpensive, widely available, and can be used immediately to save lives around the world."

Along the same lines, Martin Landray, professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at the Nuffield Department of Public Health said: "It is great that the first treatment that has been shown to reduce mortality is instantly available and affordable worldwide," he said. , adding that “there is a clear benefit. The treatment is for a maximum of 10 days of dexamethasone and costs around five pounds (less than 6 euros). 

So it essentially costs £ 35 to save a life. ' According to the professor, patients who are hospitalized "should receive it without delay, but people should not go out and buy it to take it at home", since dexamethasone "does not seem to help people with mild symptoms of coronavirus " or those who "do not They need help to breathe.

The research team explained in the statement that about 19 out of 20 coronavirus patients recover without being admitted. to the hospital. And while most of them are also recovering, they are the high-risk "who dexamethasone seems to help." Already used to reduce inflammation in a variety of conditions, including rheumatoid arthritis or asthma, the drug "appears to help stop the body's overreaction of the coronavirus, a process called a cytokine storm."

First shot:

Added to this good news is the announcement by the British Government that the first human trials of a new vaccine, developed by researchers at Imperial College London and funded by the Government, will begin this week.

On the other hand, engineers from University College London (UCL) and Mercedes AMG-HPP (Formula 1), in collaboration with doctors from the intensive care units of University College London hospitals, have developed the UCL Ventura, a new unit of respiratory assistance to assist Covid-19 patients with serious respiratory difficulties. The design and manufacturing instructions are available free of charge and have already been downloaded in more than 105 countries, including Spain.