06-16-2020, 07:52 PM
pdq wrote:
Some good news:
Generic steroid reduces deaths by one-third among patients with severe covid-19, study says
The drug is the first to improve survival for covid-19-afflicted patients, said Peter Horby, one of the chief investigators for the trial.
“The survival benefit is clear and large in those patients who are sick enough to require oxygen treatment, so dexamethasone should now become standard of care in these patients,” he said in a statement. “Dexamethasone is inexpensive, on the shelf, and can be used immediately to save lives worldwide.”
Interesting, in that retrospective studies of the “Spanish” flu suggested it wasn’t so much the virus, but the exaggerated immune system response to it that produced much of the sickness and death in that earlier pandemic - perhaps here too.
Also, dexamethasone is cheap and widely available, in contrast to some of the newer drugs like remdesivir.
Looks good. Preliminary. Not a completed study. Not peer-reviewed.