World

Two new life-saving drugs discovered

As we've mentioned, trials in the UK and five other countries have uncovered two more drugs which can save lives during the pandemic.

Supplies of the anti-inflammatory drugs tocilizumab and sarilumab are already available in the UK so they can be used to treat Covid-19 patients immediately.

Lead researcher Prof Anthony Gordon, from Imperial College London, said the trials showed they could save a life for every 12 patients treated - what he called a “big effect”.

As well as reducing deaths, the treatments speed up patients' recovery and reduce the length of time that critically-ill patients need to spend in intensive care by about a week.

Both drugs appear to work equally well and add to the benefit of the cheap steroid drug dexamethasone, which was the first life-saving treatment to be discovered.

The new treatments cost around £750 to £1,000 ($1,000-$1,350) per patient, on top of the £5 course of dexamethasone. Even though that's expensive, experts say it is far less than the typical £2,000 cost per day of an intensive care bed. (bbc.com)