Scientists find life-saving drug for COVID-19 patients

A cheap and widely available drug can help save the lives of patients severely ill with coronavirus, BBC reported.

The low-dose steroid treatment dexamethasone is a breakthrough in the fight against the deadly virus, UK experts say.

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. For those on oxygen, it cut fatalities by a fifth.

The drug is already used to reduce inflammation in a range of other conditions. It appears that it helps stop some of the damage that can happen when the body's immune system goes into overdrive as it tries to fight off coronavirus.

In the trial, led by a team from Oxford University, around 2,000 hospital patients were given dexamethasone and compared with more than 4,000 who did not receive the drug.

For patients on ventilators, it cut the risk of death from 40% to 28%. For patients needing oxygen, it reduced the risk of death from 25% to 20%.

For those patients treated with oxygen, you save one life for approximately every 20-25 treated with the drug.