News is trumpeting on digital streets of a new super drug for treating severe COVID-19 cases. It gets straight to the sharp edge of the problem by helping patients with severe respiratory problems. Quietly testing on COVID-19 patients has been ongoing for a while, away from news pages. We therefore decided to get the low down on wonder drug Dexamethasone and how it works.
The Origin and the Lowdown on Wonder Drug Dexamethasone
Dexamethasone is actually old news in the medication cabinet in hospitals. That’s because the anti-inflammatory drug first appeared as a treatment for brain cancer patients in 1958. And it is still the most favorable drug for that purpose according to National Institutes of Health. Moreover, the cortico-steroid medication is stock item in hospitals for treatment of many other conditions.
Those medical conditions include skin diseases, severe allergies, rheumatic problems, brain swelling, eye pain after surgery, and antibiotics for tuberculosis. Someone decided to get the low down on wonder drug dexamethasone’s effectiveness for asthma, croup, and chronic obstructive lung disease too
That’s pretty much how science works. A flash of human inspiration is the lead-in to months, if not years of painstaking work in a laboratory. Scientists have tried to compress this time frame. However regulatory medical approval for COVID-19 can still take months. The advantage of Dexamethasone is it’s already in the system.
Dexamethasone is Inexpensive and Should Be Readily Available
Dexamethasone is a dangerous drug with serious side-effects under certain circumstances. Therefore, this is most definitely not something to acquire on the black market and self-administer. A medical professional must approve its use under controlled conditions. We hope this starts really soon.
Moreover, the wonder drug Dexamethasone is remarkably inexpensive. A month of medication costs about $25 currently according to Wikipedia. This falls as low as US$0.50 in India where they use it for preterm labor contractions. Dexamethasone is used throughout the world where doctors administer it via tablets, injections, and eye drops.
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Preview Image: Dexamethasone Phosphate Injection Vials
