Dexamethasone Shows Good Efficacy In Treating Severe COVID-19 Patients

1. Huateng Pharma https://en.huatengsci.com/ Dexamethasone Shows Good Efficacy In Treating Severe COVID-19 Patients The novel coronavirus started spreading in December 2019, and since then, it has rippled across the globe, affecting near 200 countries and territories, and infecting more than 8.18 million people, causing 438,000 deaths. However, the behavior and mechanism of the virus, including whether it provides adaptive immunity, is still unclear. Researchers in England say they have the first evidence that a drug can improve COVID-19 survival: A cheap and widely used steroid can reduce the deaths by up to one third in severely ill hospitalized patients. The results of the study were published on this Tuesday (16th, June), and the British government immediately authorized the drug to be used across the United Kingdom for coronavirus patients who did well in the study. The researchers say they will publish their findings in a medical journal soon. Several independent experts said it was important to see the details to know how much of a difference the drug, known as dexamethasone, might make and for whom.

2. Huateng Pharma https://en.huatengsci.com/ Dexamethasone is a type of corticosteroid medication. It is used in the treatment of many conditions, including rheumatic problems, a number of skin diseases, severe allergies, asthma, chronic obstructive lung disease, croup, brain swelling, eye pain following eye surgery, and along with antibiotics in tuberculosis. The study, led by the University of Oxford, was a large, rigorous test that randomly assigned 2,104 patients to take the drug and compared with 4,321 patients who getting only routine treatment. The drug was given orally or intravenously for 10 days. After four weeks, it had reduced deaths by 35% in patients who needed treatment with breathing machines and by 20% in those only needing supplemental oxygen. But it seems to be of no help to less ill patients. "These are big effects," said one of the study leader, Dr. Martin Landray at Oxford. "It's not a cure, but it's certainly a long way forward." It's especially good news that the drug "is very cheap, perhaps only $20 or $30 for a full course of treatment," he added. Steroid drugs can reduce inflammation, which sometimes occurs in COVID-19 patients as their immune system overreacts to fight the infection. This overreaction may damage the lungs and can prove fatal. The World Health Organization and other agencies recommend against using steroids earlier in the course of illness because they can impede virus clearance. No information was provided on side effects, but the researchers said they used doses and short periods of time, which is generally safe. "Low doses shouldn't be a problem in the short-term, but steroids do have a lot of side effects" including weight gain, high blood pressure, water retention, mood changes, sleep problems and elevated blood sugar in diabetics, Marty said. Until now, the only drug proven to help fight COVID-19 is Remdesivir, an experimental drug from Gilead Sciences that blocks an enzyme the virus uses to replicate its genetic material. In a study led by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, Remdesivir shortened the time to recovery for severely ill hospitalized patients to an average of 11 days, compared with 15 days for those just given routine treatment. "We don't know yet" Fauci said, "whether Remdesivir can be used with dexamethasone—or before or after it—to give more benefit."

3. Huateng Pharma https://en.huatengsci.com/ Although dexamethasone is only useful in severe cases, "countless lives will be saved globally," said Nick Cammack, a virus expert at the Wellcome Trust, a British charity that supports the research. Huateng Pharma, a leading pharmaceuticals & API intermediates manufacturers in China, is exclusively focusing on manufacturing pharmaceuticals intermediates, such as dexamethasone, Remdesivir intermediates, Favipiravir intermediates, Semaglutide intermediates and so on. We are able to provide the production of these intermediates with capacities varying from gram to kilograms with high purity to our customers all over the world. Source: 1. Cheap drug is first shown to improve COVID-19 survival 2. UK coronavirus patients to get dexamethasone steroid immediately