Ns News Online Desk: Trials around the world are attempting to identify treatments for people with severe Covid-19. The first drugs that do make a difference are now being identified. What work is being done to find treatments?
More than 150 different drugs are being researched in different countries. Most are existing drugs that are being trialled against the virus.
The UK is running the the world’s largest clinical trial, called Recovery, with more than 12,000 patients taking part – it is one of the few trials to have given a definitive view on which drugs do and do not work
The World Health Organization (WHO) is running the the Solidarity trial to assess promising treatments in countries around the world
Multiple pharmaceutical companies are running trials of their own drugs There are three broad approaches being investigated:
Antiviral drugs that directly affect the coronavirus’s ability to thrive inside the body
Drugs that calm the immune system (severe Covid-19 is caused by patients’ immune systems overreacting and damaging the body)
Antibodies that can target the virus, taken from either survivors‘ blood plasma or made in a lab
It is possible that different drugs will work better at different stages – such as anti-virals at the beginning and immune drugs in late-stage diseases. Combinations of therapies will also be investigated.
The only life-saving drugs
Of all the drugs being trialed, only steroids have been proven to save lives and the discovery has been a a significant breakthrough in the fight against coronavirus.
The UK’s Recovery trial showed the steroid dexamethasone cut the risk of death by a third for patients on ventilators and by a fifth for those on oxygen.
And further data suggests another steroid, hydrocortisone, is equally effective too.
Both calm down inflammation (part of the immune response) in the body, which can become damaging in severe cases. Crucially it is also cheap which means it could be used all around the world.
