Dexamethasone and Covid 19

Dexamethasone and Covid 19

Many people would have in no doubt seen in the news that dexamethasone helps in the treatment of Covid 19, but it is not a cure

And more importantly it does not prevent the virus

It is an unbelievably cheap drug, and many people can get hold of it.

That is why many health authorities are concerned.

What is dexamethasone? What was it used for? How does it work?

Dexamethasone is a type of steroid medication. It comes in tablet form and can be given as injection. It has been around a long time and like chloroquine it is not a new drug.

It has been used in the treatment of many conditions like severe allergy, chronic lung diseases-asthma and COPD, brain swelling. With antibiotics it has been used to treat severe bacterial infections like meningitis and pneumonia and also tuberculosis. It has been used in cancer treatment.

In most of these conditions, the body responds by causing inflammation to protect itself but at times the inflammation produced by the body becomes so much that it harms the body. So, dexamethasone acts to reduce such harmful inflammatory response. That is the thinking behind the use of the medication in the treatment of Covid patients

Such excessive harmful inflammation produced by the body is what happens in Covid 19 and may have been what killed some patients.  Hence dexamethasone was used in hospitals to treat Covid 19 patients in order to reduce too much inflammation and it helped some of the people.

So, dexamethasone is not a cure and does not prevent Covid 19.

Healthy people should not buy it and should not take it. It could cause harm like high blood pressure, high blood sugar level(diabetes), headaches and many others.

 Simple measures of prevention of Covid 19 are the most effective- washing hands regularly, social distancing, wearing masks, eating fresh foods and exercise-get fresh air into your lungs to keep the lungs healthy and drive the virus from it. Healthier lungs give you a better chance of survival of Covid 19.