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Many European cities are facing a significant increase in the number of COVID-19 patients needing care in intensive care units, said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization (WHO). It warned on Friday that ATI sections could reach the operating capacity limit in the coming weeks, EFE reports, quoted by Agerpres. At the same time, the WHO head said that dexamethasone is currently the only treatment that works in severe cases of COVID-19.
“Last week, the number of cases (of COVID-19) was three times higher than during the first peak in March,” Tedros said.
Regarding therapies, the WHO chief noted that dexamethasone is currently the only treatment that has been shown to be effective in severe cases of COVID-19, a statement that comes shortly after the WHO announced expected results for four therapies tested around the world in the study called “Solidarity”.
“In June we announced that we would discontinue hydroxychloroquine, in July we announced that we would no longer use patients for the lopinavir / ritonavir trials, and now preliminary results show that two other trial drugs, remdesivir and interferon, have little or no effect on reducing mortality from COVID-19, ” said the WHO Director-General.
But he added that the “Solidarity” study would continue, with about 2,000 patients recruited per month for clinical trials, noting that monoclonal antibody treatments or other antiviral drugs could also be tried.
For her part, the WHO technical director for COVID-19, Maria Van Kerkhove, said that while the increase in cases and hospitalizations in Europe was worrying, “we are not in the same situation as six months ago, as we now know more “. a lot about this disease. ”
“Diagnostic capacity has increased, health workers are more trained and experienced, and there is a public awareness of what needs to be done to protect ourselves, so we must put all of this together to help control the pandemic,” he said. .
Also read: The Minister of Health: “We will have progressive growth in the coming days.” When Nelu Tătaru thinks the number of new cases will decrease
Editing: Alexandru Costea
