GENEVA (SWITZERLAND) – The World Health Organization (WHO) said it would update its COVID-19 treatment guidelines based on the results of a clinical trial that showed a cheap, common steroid can help save critically ill patients.
Trial results announced on Tuesday showed dexamethasone, which has been in use since the 1960s to reduce inflammation in diseases such as arthritis, cut death rates by around a third among the most severely ill COVID-19 patients.
WHO’s clinical guidance for treating coronavirus patients is aimed at doctors and other medical professionals and seeks to use the latest data to inform clinicians on how best to handle the different phases of the disease.
Although the dexamethasone study’s results are preliminary, the researchers said it suggests the drug should immediately become standard care in critically ill patients.
The treatment was shown to reduce mortality by about one one third in patients on ventilator support, and for patients requiring only oxygen, mortality was cut by about one fifth, according to preliminary findings.
The benefit was visible only in seriously ill patients.
“This is the first treatment to be shown to reduce mortality in patients with COVID-19 requiring oxygen or ventilator support,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement late on Tuesday. The agency said it was looking forward to the full data analysis of the study in coming days.
“WHO will coordinate a meta-analysis to increase our overall understanding of this intervention. WHO clinical guidance will be updated to reflect how and when the drug should be used in COVID-19,” the agency added.
But South Korea’s top health official cautioned about the use of the drug for COVID-19 patients.
“(It) has already long been used in South Korean hospitals to treat patients with different inflammation,” Jeong Eun-kyeong, head of Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) said.
“But some experts have warned of the drug not only reducing the inflammatory response in patients, but also the immune system and may trigger side effects. KCDC is discussing the use of it for COVID-19 patients.”
(Photos syndicated via Reuters)
This story has been edited by BH staff and is published from a syndicated field