Dexamethasone touted by WHO does help in treating Covid-19, but is not panacea - Russian medical expert
MOSCOW. June 17 (Interfax) - The corticosteroid dexamethasone has been used in Russia for quite a while to treat patients with Covid-19, the Russian Health Ministry's chief pulmonologist Sergei Avdeyev said on Wednesday.
"This drug has been widely used in Russia. But, sadly, dexamethasone is not a panacea: it may help in some cases, but may not in others," the Health Ministry quoted Avdeyev as saying.
The World Health Organization (WHO) earlier described clinical trial results which show that dexamethasone may be efficacious in treating coronavirus patients in serious condition as a "lifesaving scientific breakthrough."
The WHO said, citing preliminary findings, that treatment with dexamethasone has been shown to reduce mortality by about one third for patients on ventilators and by about 20% for patients who require oxygen therapy.
"This is the first treatment to be shown to reduce mortality in patients with Covid-19 requiring oxygen or ventilator support," the WHO quoted its Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus as saying.
Avdeyev said when commenting on these findings that the drug "does have an anti-inflammatory effect on some Covid-19 patients who have a marked inflammation."
The last edition of the Russian Health Ministry's methodological recommendations on the prevention, diagnostics, and treatment of the new coronavirus infection approve the prescription of glucocorticoids, including dexamethasone, Avdeyev said.
Dexamethasone is not a new drug, it is an anti-inflammatory medication targeting any inflammation, including in the lungs, Avdeyev said. "This medication is well known and has been used for several decades. There is extensive research dealing with the efficacy of this medication in treating ARDS [acute respiratory distress syndrome]," he said.
The latest research on dexamethasone's efficacy in treating Covid-19 patients was conducted in Oxford, the United Kingdom, and the UK government approved its use for treating patients with the coronavirus infection.