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A cheap and widely available drug can help save the lives of people who have been affected by the virus. U.K. experts say that it is a major breakthrough in the battle against the virus. The low dose steroid treatment dexamethasone is part of the world’s biggest trial testing. It can cut the risk of death by a third of patients put on ventilators and by a fifth for those on oxygen. According to researchers, if this drug was used to treat patients in UK at the start of the pandemic, at least 5000 lives could have been saved.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that it is a remarkable British scientific achievement and calls for a celebration. It can save lives across the globe. Currently the UK government has 200,000 courses of the drug in its stockpile and plans to manufacture more of it. It helps high risk patients who either require oxygen or mechanical ventilators and not people who have mild symptoms.
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