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The World Health Organization is expected to issue new guidelines that encourage the use of steroids in critically ill patients.
International clinical trials have shown promising results, writes the New York Times.
On Wednesday, clinical trials were published raising hope that cheap and widely available steroids could help seriously ill patients survive Covid-19, the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.
Up to 20 percent
Therefore, the World Health Organization is now expected to issue new guidelines today encouraging the treatment of critically ill COVID-19 patients with steroids.
The new studies include an analysis with data from seven randomized clinical trials that evaluated three steroids in more than 1,700 patients.
The study concluded that all three drugs reduced the risk of death.
This article and three related studies were published in the journal JAMA, along with an editorial describing the research as an “important step forward in the treatment of patients with COVID-19.”
According to the Reuters news agency, studies should show that steroids can reduce mortality in severe corona patients by up to 20 percent.
– effective
“Steroids are cheap and readily available drugs, and our analysis has confirmed that they are effective in reducing mortality among those most affected by COVID-19,” said Jonathan Sterne, professor of medical statistics and epidemiology at the University of Bristol at the UK.
Furthermore, Sterne says that the experiments, carried out by researchers in the UK, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Spain and the US, are clear that the drugs have a beneficial effect on the sickest patients, regardless of age or gender or how long patients have been ill.
The results, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, are considered a possible breakthrough.
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