Baroness Heather Hallett, Chair of the COVID-19 Inquiry, has described the RECOVERY trial’s identification of the drug dexamethasone to treat COVID-19 patients as ‘one of the two success stories of the pandemic’, along with the UK’s COVID vaccination programme.
She noted that by March 2021, the drug – an inexpensive and readily available steroid – had saved an estimated 22,000 lives in the UK, and 1 million across the globe.
Hallett was presenting the main findings of a 274-page report, the fourth of 10 to be published by the inquiry, which was established to independently examine the UK’s response to the pandemic and to learn lessons for the future.
The report quotes the late Professor Sir Nicholas White (Nuffield Department of Medicine), expert witness to the inquiry, who stated that the dexamethasone finding was ‘the single most important therapeutics research result of the pandemic’ and a ‘remarkable achievement’.
The RECOVERY trial was set up in just nine days after being designated an urgent public health research study and 10,000 patients were recruited in two months. It focused on testing treatments that were already being used for other conditions.
Within 100 days the trial had its first results, showing that two drugs being used to treat hospitalised COVID-19 patients – hydroxychloroquine and lopinavir-ritonavir – did not improve survival, while dexamethasone was found to be life-saving. Within hours of the results confirming its effectiveness, hospitals began dispensing dexamethasone to COVID-19 patients.
Read the full story on the Nuffield Department of Population Health website.