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British scientists have discovered only the second type of drug to prevent people from dying from the coronavirus.
Steroids costing just £ 5 per person were found to save the lives of one in ten treated patients and will now become the standard treatment globally.
They were given to patients who needed oxygen and could be taken as tablets or injected into the bloodstream for the sickest patients.
Seven trials coordinated by the World Health Organization followed patients with types of steroids called corticosteroids at 88 NHS hospitals.
One type of corticosteroid, called hydrocortisone, reduces the risk of death in critically ill coronavirus patients by 20%.
NHS England Executive Director Sir Simon Stevens said: “The NHS will now take immediate action to ensure that patients who could benefit from hydrocortisone treatment do so, adding one more weapon to the arsenal in the global fight against Covid-19. “.
The NHS trials meant Britain was the first country to find a drug that worked to stop the deaths of Covid-19 patients, in the form of dexamethasone.
Three studies were published today in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) showing that corticosteroids improve survival.
In one at the University of Bristol, 68% of critically ill patients survived after receiving hydrocortisone, compared with 60% who survived without them.
Steroids are anti-inflammatory, so they prevent the virus from triggering a serious reaction in which the immune system attacks the body, particularly in the lungs.
Trials from the University of Oxford and Imperial College London also confirmed that different types of corticosteroids worked.
Professor Martin Landray, University of Oxford, said: “These patients are very high risk, for whom there was no other treatment, and this drug costs next to nothing.
“Treating 12 patients costs less than £ 60, so it’s a really cheap and life-saving treatment.”
Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, Deputy Chief Medical Officer, said: “These findings offer further evidence that corticosteroids may be an important part of Covid-19 treatment for critically ill patients.
“It is impressive to see so many participants from the UK willing to participate in studies. Research like this will make a difference in the control of this virus. “
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Simon Stevens added: “One of the distinctive benefits of having our NHS is that we have been able to mobilize rapidly and at scale to help researchers test and develop proven coronavirus treatments.”
It occurs when the UK is not seeing an increase in deaths from the virus despite the increase in cases.
While there is a delay before the increase in cases begins to have an impact on the death data, experts hope that the low mortality is due in part to the NHS improving its treatment of the coronavirus.
However, there is a race to find drugs that will work before winter flu season. Government scientists have said the UK could see up to 80,000 more deaths in a “reasonable worst case scenario”.
The official death toll in the UK is 41,500.
One of the Imperial College London studies found that hydrocortisone led to a 93% chance of a better outcome. This was a higher chance of survival or a lower need for organ support.
Professor Stephen Evans of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said: “This analysis released today is a tour-de-force.
“The methods are of the highest level to combine the results of several trials that answer the same question.”
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