$10 drug dexamethasone hailed as COVID-19 treatment breakthrough

A ‘boring’ drug developed 50 years ago has been hailed as ‘the biggest breakthrough yet’ in treatment of coronavirus.

The steroid in this drug has been found to save the lives of one third of the most serious COVID-19 cases, according to trial results. Picture: bertrand Guay/AFP.

A “boring” $10 drug that was developed more than half a century ago has been hailed as “the biggest breakthrough yet” in the treatment of coronavirus.

Hospitals around the world are expected to follow the lead of the UK’s National Health Service in immediately approving the use of a steroid called dexamethasone, which has been shown to reduce the death rates of COVID-19 intensive care patients requiring ventilation or oxygen support.

Dexamethasone is commonly used to treat arthritis, asthma and severe allergies and was developed in the late 1950s. It’s also used by pregnant women to help stop nausea, while mountain climbers use it to combat altitude sickness.

CARDIFF, UNITED KINGDOM - JUNE 16: A close-up of a box of Dexamethasone tablets in a pharmacy on June 16, 2020 in Cardiff, United Kingdom. Results of a trial announced today have shown that Dexamethasone, a cheap and widely used steroid drug which is used to reduce inflammation, reduced death rates by around a third in the most severely ill COVID-19 patients who were admitted to hospital. Researches have predicted 5,000 lives could have been saved had the drug been used to treat patients in the UK at the start of the pandemic.(Photo by Matthew Horwood/Getty Images)

UK prime minister Boris Johnson said the work of British scientists assessing dexamethasone was the “biggest breakthrough yet” in dealing with coronavirus.

“I am proud of these British scientists, backed by government funding, which have led the first robust clinical trial anywhere in the world to find a coronavirus treatment proven to reduce the risk of death,” Mr Johnson said.

However it appears that the UK has prevented export of the medication, with tablets of the steroid banned on April 24, and as an oral solution or for injection on June 16. Mr Johnson was surprised at hearing of the ban at the government’s daily press conference, saying it “sounds peculiar to me”.

The British team, called Recovery and based at the University of Oxford, found that dexamethasone reduced deaths by one-third in ventilated patients and by one-fifth in other patients receiving oxygen only. There was no benefit among those patients who did not require respiratory support.

The first successful clinical trial in the world has found an effective treatment to improve survival of #coronavirus patients needing oxygen treatment. pic.twitter.com/OK235v8Jci

— UK Prime Minister (@10DowningStreet) June 16, 2020

Lead investigator Peter Hornby said some people may regard dexamethasone as a “boring drug” as it is very cheap and been in existence for “60-odd years”.

The Recovery team said one death would be prevented by using dexamethasone in eight ventilated patients, or around 25 patients requiring oxygen alone. If dexamethasone had been used from the beginning of the pandemic in the UK, around 5000 lives may have been saved from the current toll of 41,000.

“It is a major breakthrough,” Martin Landray, Recovery’s deputy investigator, said.

“Since the advent of this disease less than six months ago the search has been on for a treatment that actually reduces the risk of dying – and there hasn’t been one until today. Now there is one.

“The results are sufficiently clear and people can be treated this evening. That’s a major, major step forward.

“This is not an expensive drug, this is not a drug where there are supply chain issues or manufacturing issues, this is a drug that is globally available, so that is enormously important.

Results from the #RECOVERYtrial. Low-dose dexamethasone reduces risk of death by one-third in #COVID19 patients on ventilators & by one-fifth for patients requiring oxygen alone.

A huge team effort across 175 NHS hospitals. https://t.co/kIwN6VsYHj

— Martin Landray (@MartinLandray) June 16, 2020

“It’s going to be hard for any drug to replace this given that for less than £50 ($A95) you could take eight patients and save a life.”

The same research team has been involved in assessing different potential coronavirus treatments. Earlier this month they showed that hydroxychloroquine – the drug hailed by the US president Donald Trump as a potential lifesaver – was not an effective treatment for coronavirus.

Recovery is still researching the impact of HIV treatment Lopinavir-Ritonavir, a common antibiotic Azithromycin, an anti-inflammatory called Tocilizumab and the use of convalescent plasma which is collected from donors who have recovered from coronavirus and have antibodies against the virus.