Cheap steroid drug effective in treating COVID-19, research shows

A cheap drug normally used by asthma patients cuts the risk of death in patients seriously ill with COVID-19, a study has found.

Dexamethasone, a steroid, cut the risk of death by one third for people on ventilators and by one fifth for people on oxygen.

The low-dose steroid treatment has been hailed as a major breakthrough in the fight against the virus, UK experts said.

This steroid has been available for sale for a very long time and is commonly used to fight inflammations and other conditions such as asthma and arthritis, with no known serious harmful side-effects.

Although this drug is being assumed to be the best cure for COVID-19 up till today, health professionals are advising people not to go around buying it from pharmacies to consume it at home in the case they test positive for coronavirus.

The treatment usually takes 10 days and costs around €6 for each patient, and the dosage depends on how ill the patient is.

When compared to other drugs that have been tested it is by far much more effective, cheap and successful. It is being estimated that it could have saved around 5,000 patients in England, had it been in use from the start of the pandemic.