The steroid drug dexamethasone has yet to be approved in the Philippines as a COVID-19 treatment and should not be considered a miracle drug that could singlehandedly cure the virus, the Department of Health said today.
“People might think that this is the magic pill for COVID-19. It is not,” Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire told reporters in a media forum.
Vergeire’s statement comes after initial trial results from the United Kingdom found that the drug prevented the deaths of one-third of intubated and critically-ill COVID-19 patients, a finding that the World Health Organization called a “lifesaving scientific breakthrough.”
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Vergeire said that dexamethasone is a steroid, and therefore has anti-inflammatory properties that may help people infected with the virus.
She added that the drug was already a “supportive treatment” for patients who are severely infected with the virus and the findings’ preliminary results will still need to be “peer-reviewed” to ensure that they are “acceptable” to be given to Filipino patients.
Vergeire also reiterated that there is still no known cure or vaccine against COVID-19.
Despite cautioning Pinoys against self-medicating with the drug, Vergeire acknowledged that the initial trials on dexamethasone were indeed a “breakthrough” in COVID-19 cure research.
To date the Philippines has at least 26,781 confirmed COVID-19 cases, including 1,103 deaths, and 6,552 recoveries.
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