dc.contributor.author |
Outhoff, Kim
|
|
dc.date.accessioned |
2021-11-04T09:33:24Z |
|
dc.date.available |
2021-11-04T09:33:24Z |
|
dc.date.issued |
2020-11 |
|
dc.description.abstract |
Our lives changed dramatically eight months ago when we went into a hard nationwide lockdown in a bid to limit the transmission of our new spiky foe, SARS-CoV-2. We endured the uncertainties of autumn, and then the winter and the cold July COVID-19 peak. At this time, Oxford University’s RECOVERY Collaborative group first reported on dexamethasone (6 mg daily for 10 days) significantly lowering the 28-day mortality in hospitalised COVID-19 patients on invasive mechanical ventilation or on oxygen alone, by as much as a third and a fifth, respectively. It was hypothesised that glucocorticoids modulate inflammation-mediated lung injury, thus reducing the likely progression to respiratory failure and death in patients with severe illness. This made us perk up because a couple of months earlier, the intravenous antiviral, remdesivir (100 mg), also administered for 10 days, had shown promise in shortening the time to recovery by a median of five days compared to placebo, but not in reducing death in hospitalised COVID-19 patients with lower respiratory tract involvement.2 The FDA granted remdesivir Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) in May for the treatment of adults and children hospitalised with suspected or laboratory confirmed COVID-19 based on this meagre evidence, as there were no other treatment options at the time. Meanwhile, dexamethasone, which is relatively cheap, quickly became the standard care in patients requiring oxygen. |
en_ZA |
dc.description.department |
Pharmacology |
en_ZA |
dc.description.librarian |
am2021 |
en_ZA |
dc.description.uri |
https://medpharm.co.za/about-our-journals/sagp |
en_ZA |
dc.identifier.citation |
Outfhoff, K. 2020, 'COVID-19 treatment : a growing (anti)body of evidence', South African General Practitione, vol. 1, no. 5, pp. 172-174. |
en_ZA |
dc.identifier.issn |
2706-9613 (print) |
|
dc.identifier.issn |
2706-9621 (online) |
|
dc.identifier.other |
10.36303/SAGP.2020.1.5.0048 |
|
dc.identifier.uri |
http://hdl.handle.net/2263/82562 |
|
dc.language.iso |
en |
en_ZA |
dc.publisher |
Medpharm Publications |
en_ZA |
dc.rights |
© 2020 The Authors.
Open Access article distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons License [CC BY-NC-ND 4.0]. |
en_ZA |
dc.subject |
Treatment |
en_ZA |
dc.subject |
Lockdown |
en_ZA |
dc.subject |
Transmission |
en_ZA |
dc.subject |
COVID-19 pandemic |
en_ZA |
dc.subject |
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) |
en_ZA |
dc.subject |
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) |
en_ZA |
dc.title |
COVID-19 treatment : a growing (anti)body of evidence |
en_ZA |
dc.type |
Article |
en_ZA |