Covid-19 help drug in routine use in the island

Dexamethasone is a corticosteroid, which can be lifesaving for patients who are critically ill with the illness.

For patients on ventilators, the treatment was shown to reduce mortality by about a third, and for patients requiring oxygen, mortality was cut by about one fifth, according to preliminary findings.

A Health & Social Care spokesman said they had been reading the research.

‘HSC is aware of the Lancet paper detailing the use of Dexamethasone in Covid-19 patients,’ he said.

‘Dexamethasone is a drug we use routinely in Guernsey. Stocks are good and we are part of the NHS supply chain in any case where again stocks are good.

‘Any Guernsey patient who contracted Covid-19 and would benefit from it, will receive it.’

Guernsey has not had any positive tests for Covid-19 for 48 days.

The benefit was only seen in patients seriously ill with Covid-19, and was not observed in patients with a milder form of the disease.

It is not a new drug. It has been used for around 60 years to help with inflammatory and autoimmune conditions, such as rheumatoid arthritis.

Full analysis of how the drug can help Covid-19 patients will be released in the next few days.

World Health Organization director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus welcomed the news so far.

‘This is the first treatment to be shown to reduce mortality in patients with Covid-19 requiring oxygen or ventilator support,’ he said.

‘This is great news and I congratulate the government of the UK, the University of Oxford, and the many hospitals and patients in the UK who have contributed to this lifesaving scientific breakthrough.’