Dexamethasone - Breakthrough Medicine for COVID-19 Cure: WHO tells How and When to Use!

The World Health Organisation (WHO) announced the new steroid dexamethasone that can help save lives for critically ill COVID-19 patients, to be a “great news”. It is the first real breakthrough as it has shown positive clinical results.

“This is the first treatment to be shown to reduce mortality in patients with COVID-19 requiring oxygen or ventilator support,” WHO Director-General Tedros Andhanom Ghebreyesus said on Tuesday. “This is great news and I congratulate the government of the UK, the University of Oxford, and the many hospitals and patients in the UK who have contributed to this lifesaving scientific breakthrough.”

In a statement WHO said that it is looking forward to the full data according to the analysis conducted in the UK shortly. “WHO will coordinate a meta-analysis to increase our overall understanding of this intervention. WHO clinical guidance will be updated to reflect how and when the drug should be used in COVID-19,” the agency added.

After a day, the WHO announced that it is important to reserve the use of this steroid mainly for serious COVID-19 patients. "It's exceptionally important in these cases that the drug is reserved for severely ill and critical patients who can benefit from this clearly," Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO told a briefing.