The World Health Organization called on Monday for a rapid increase in production of dexamethasone, a cheap steroid which has been shown to reduce deaths in critically ill coronavirus patients. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said demand had already surged after a British trial of the drug was publicised but he was confident production could be ramped up.Some 2,000 patients were given the drug by researchers led by a team from Oxford Unversity, and it reduced deaths by 35 percent among the most sickly, according to findings published last week. “The next challenge is to increase production and rapidly and equitably distribute dexamethasone worldwide, focusing on where it is needed most.”
Dexamethasone has been on the market for over 60 years and usually serves to reduce inflammation. The WHO emphasises that dexamethasone should only be used for patients with severe or critical disease under close clinical supervision. The UN health agency boss insisted that countries with large numbers of critically ill coronavirus patients needed to be prioritised. But Tedros warned that suppliers had to guarantee quality “as there is a high risk of substandard or falsified products entering the market”.
After the initial outbreak in China, the epicentre of the virus has moved from East Asia to Europe and now to the Americas. But its presence in Europe seems to go back much earlier than previously thought, with a study showing that fragments of the new coronavirus was in the wastewater in Milan and Turin back in December. “Clearly there is a chance that this virus was circulating in northern Italy obviously before anyone had realised that it had been,” said WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan.
Source: DJ
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