The World Health Organization has hailed a “breakthrough” steroid treatment for the coronavirus, but the Department of Health (DOH) on Wednesday reminded the public that the widely available drug dexamethasone has not yet been approved in the country as a COVID-19 treatment.
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News of the first proven effective treatment for COVID-19 gave cause for fresh hope.
“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,” said the head of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Researchers led by a team from the University of Oxford administered dexamethasone to more than 2,000 severely ill COVID-19 patients.
Among those who could only breathe with the help of a ventilator, it reduced deaths by 35 percent.
“Dexamethasone is inexpensive, on the shelf, and can be used immediately to save lives worldwide,” said Peter Horby, professor of Emerging Infectious Diseases in the Nuffield Department of Medicine at Oxford.
Britain’s Health Secretary Matt Hancock said patients in the UK would start to receive the drug immediately.
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However, the DOH said dexamethasone should not be used for treatment of COVID-19, nor should it be taken outside the hospital.
It is also still not registered with the local Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which means that its effectivity has not yet been validated.
“We know that dexamethasone is a steroid. It has anti-inflammatory properties that can help a person who has COVID,” Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said during a media briefing on Wednesday.
“People might think this is the magic pill for COVID. It is not,” Vergeire warned.
“We should inform people that you shouldn’t buy this from the drug store and take it to prevent COVID-19,” she appealed to the public, pointing out that the Oxford study was done in hospitals.
She said the initial study also showed dexamethasone reduced the deaths of those receiving oxygen or were on ventilators by a fifth.
However, besides being just a preliminary study, Vergeire it is not yet peer-reviewed, which means it has not yet been analyzed by other experts. She stressed it is crucial for medical studies to be peer-reviewed first.
Vergeire said dexamethasone is not considered a cure but only part of the support treatment for COVID-19 patients with severe symptoms.
“Yes this is a breakthrough in science if ever, but we need to wait for the study to be completed,” she said.
Vergeire warned the public to be wary about those linking dexamethasone and the locally-made Fabunan antiviral drug.
While it claims to include dexamethasone as a component, the Fabunan drug has only been given to mild and asymptomatic outpatients.
Vergeire said the group selling the so-called antiviral drug has a license to operate but their products are unregistered, which means they cannot sell it. With AFP