South African Health Minister Zweli Mkhize on Tuesday said the repurposed drug dexamethasone “has a very limited but helpful effect on patients suffering from the coronavirus.”
According to recent trials conducted in Britain, the steroid drug worked best in patients who have a severe attack of the virus, and its use could spare the patients from being placed on ventilators.
While using ventilators was helpful as a last resort for Covid-19 patients, doctors said that some 42 percent of the patients on the machines have so far succumbed to the disease.
Mkhize, however, said he hoped that the steroid would reduce this number on the country’s victims of the virus.
“It reduces the number of people who die. It doesn’t necessarily stop anyone from succumbing to Covid-19.
“The second aspect is that it has no effect on people who have got milder symptoms. However, our biggest concern is that it is associated with comorbidities” – those with more than one disease or condition present in a patient at the same time, Mkhize said.
He, however, said that his country – as a manufacturer and supplier of the drug — has “excellent local capacity to provide the steroid drug dexamethasone to Covid-19 patients.”
Dexamethasone is not recommended for asymptomatic patients or those who don’t require oxygen.
NM/jn/APA