Cheap steroid dexamethasone hailed as 'major breakthrough' in treating coronavirus

The drug, dexamethasone, is readily available in hospitals and should now become "standard of care" in Covid-19 patients on ventilators or oxygen, researchers say.

Advice will be going out to all NHS hospitals within the next 24 hours to act on the results, meaning everyone who could benefit from the steroid could get it.

Peter Horby, Professor of Emerging Infectious Diseases in the Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, and one of the chief investigators for the trial, described it as "an extremely welcome result".

"This is the only drug that has so far shown to reduce mortality, and it reduces it significantly. It is a major breakthrough, I think," he said.

"Dexamethasone is inexpensive, on the shelf, and can be used immediately to save lives worldwide."

The drug is part of the world's biggest trial testing existing treatments to see if they also work for coronavirus.

It cut the risk of death by a third for patients on ventilators, and by a fifth for those on oxygen.

Up to 5,000 lives could have been saved had the drug had been used to treat patients in the UK from the start of the pandemic, researchers say.

Martin Landray, Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at the Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford, was also one of the chief investigators.

He said: "Covid-19 is a global disease - it is fantastic that the first treatment demonstrated to reduce mortality is one that is instantly available and affordable worldwide."

"It’s been around for probably 60 years. "It costs in the order of £5, £5 for a complete course of treatment in the NHS, and substantially less – probably less than one dollar – in other parts of the world, for example in India."

The UK government has 200,000 courses of the drug in its stockpile and says the NHS will make dexamethasone available to patients.

Speaking at the daily Downing Street briefing, the Prime Minister said he was proud of the British scientists who led the trial.

He said: "I am proud of these British scientists backed by UK Government funding who have led the first robust clinical trial anywhere int he world to find a coronavirus treatment proven to reduce the risk of death.

"I’m very grateful to the thousands of patients in this country who have volunteered for the trials."

He added: "This drug - dexamethasone - can now be made available across the NHS and we've taken steps to make sure we have enough supplies even in the event of a second peak

"Of course while the chances of dying from Covid-19 have been greatly reduced by this treatment - or significantly reduced by this treatment - they are still far too high, so we must redouble our research efforts and we certainly will.

"But today there's genuinely cause to celebrate a remarkable British achievement, and the benefits it will bring not only in this country but around the world."

The Recovery trial - which stands for Randomised Evaluation of Covid-19 therapy - was co-ordinated by scientists from the University of Oxford.

In the trial about 2,000 hospital patients were given dexamethasone and compared with more than 4,000 who were not.

For patients on ventilators, it cut the risk of death from 40% to 28%.

For patients needing oxygen, it cut the risk of death from 25% to 20%

The mortality rate among those not requiring respiratory intervention was 13%.

However, the study did not see any benefit in those patients who were in hospital with Covid-19, but whose lungs were working sufficiently well.

Prof Landray said: "What we can see is the biggest benefits in those people at the biggest risks, which I guess if you wanted to design a drug is exactly how you’d hope to have the results."

The researchers warn that the steroid has not been studied in patients in the community, and people should not be taking dexamethasone for Covid-19.