COVID-19: for the first time, a drug appears to improve survival

“Dexamethasone reduces deaths by a third in the patients placed under mechanical ventilation”, has estimated in a statement the leaders of the large clinical trial british Recovery.

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June 16, 2020 15h33

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COVID-19: for the first time, a drug appears to improve survival

Paul Ricard

Agence France-Presse

PARIS — A drug has shown for the first time that it improved survival in patients of the COVID-19 : inexpensive and easily available, this steroid, dexamethasone, reduced the mortality among the sick in the most severely affected, according to british researchers.

“Dexamethasone reduces deaths by a third in the patients placed under mechanical ventilation”, has estimated in a statement the leaders of the large clinical trial british Recovery.

According to them, “for each group of eight patients placed under artificial ventilation, a death could be avoided” through this steroid.

In the aftermath, the british government has announced that this treatment would be immediately used to treat the patients concerned.

“The dexamethasone is not expensive, already marketed and can be immediately used to save lives around the world”, commented one of the leaders of Recovery, professor Peter Horby, university of Oxford.

“The benefit in terms of survival is important for patients who are sick enough to need oxygen, for which the dexamethasone should now become the treatment of basis”, he estimated.

In a video posted on his Twitter account, the Health minister Matt Hancock has said that the Uk had 200 000 treatments ready-to-use stored since march.

“This is a major breakthrough in the search for new ways to treat the sick, the COVID. ”

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Professor Stephen Powis, medical director of the NHS, the public service of british health

This drug is already used in many indications for its powerful anti-inflammatory effects and immunosuppressive.

“This is a major breakthrough in the search for new ways to treat the sick, the COVID”, was delighted in another press release, professor Stephen Powis, medical director of the NHS, the public health service of the uk.

Indeed, as pointed out by the responsible Recovery, “the dexamethasone is the first drug which we observe that it improves the survival in case of COVID-19”.

A drug of a different family, the antiviral remdesivir, showed a certain efficiency to accelerate the recovery of the hospitalized patients because of the COVID-19. The announcement was officially made in late April by the u.s. authorities.

But the remdesivir has not, however, been able to prove that he could avoid the dead.

Combination

At this point, despite a multitude of tracks, no other treatment has had good results.

At the beginning of June, the same test Recovery had concluded that hydroxychloroquine, in which some countries placed great hopes, had no beneficial effect against the COVID-19.

This observation led to Monday the u.s. health authorities to withdraw authorisation for use in emergency hydroxychloroquine against the COVID-19, as well as a drug in the near future, chloroquine, which had been defended by the president, Donald Trump.

Finally, the hospital group paris (AP-HP) had assured the end of April with another drug, tocilizumab, to reduce “significantly” the risk of dying or going resuscitation in patients of the COVID-19 in a serious condition. But these claims have not been substantiated by numbers or the publication of a study.

Many experts believe that the key to the treatment of the COVID-19 will not by a single drug, but by a combination of several of them.

One of the solutions could be to seek to “combine low doses of dexamethasone with other drugs that act on the inflammation, or with therapies that target the virus, such as the remdesivir”, explained it this way Tuesday, Dr. Stephen Griffin, of the university of Leeds.

In the context of the trial Recovery, 2104 patients were treated with dexamethasone (orally or intravenously) for 10 days, at a dose of 6 mg per day.

In comparing it to 4321 with other patients who had not received, the researchers have determined that the treatment reduced by one third the mortality in patients under artificial ventilation.

In addition, mortality has been reduced by one fifth in patients less severely ill, who administered oxygen through a face mask without intubation.

In contrast, the treatment showed no benefit for patients who did not require respiratory assistance.

These results have not yet been published in the form of a detailed study, but have only been the subject of a news of Recovery.

After its evaluation of hydroxychloroquine, this is the second time that this clinical trial major makes it possible to arrive at a conclusion of importance on the COVID-19. In total, more than 11 500 patients in 175 hospitals the british are participating in this trial, that evaluates multiple treatments.

Le Soleil