World Health Organization approves two new treatments for Coronavirus, including arthritis drug
WHO’s Covid treatment recommendations are regularly updated based on new data from clinical trials.
Paris:
The World Health Organization approved two new Covid-19 treatments on Friday, developing an arsenal of tools alongside vaccines to prevent severe illness and death from the virus.
The news comes as Omicron cases flood hospitals around the world and WHO predicts half of Europe will be infected by March.
In their proposal in British medical journal BMJWHO experts say the arthritis drug baricitinib used together with corticosteroids to treat severe or critical Covid patients has resulted in better survival rates and reduced need for ventilators.
Experts also recommend treatment with the synthetic antibody Sotrovimab for people with non-severe Covid-19 who are at greatest risk of hospitalization, such as the elderly, immunocompromised, or chronic conditions such as diabetes.
The benefit of Sotrovimab for people not at risk of hospitalization is considered negligible, and the WHO says its effectiveness for new variants such as Omicron is “still uncertain”.
Only three other treatments for Covid-19 have received WHO approval, starting with corticosteroids for critically ill patients in September 2020.
Corticosteroids are inexpensive and widely available and fight the inflammation that often accompanies severe cases.
The arthritis drugs tocilizumab and sarilumab, confirmed by the WHO in July, are IL-6 inhibitors that block a dangerous overreaction of the immune system to the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Baricitinib is in a different class of drugs called Janus kinase inhibitors, but it has the same guidelines as IL-6 inhibitors.
“When both are available, choose one based on issues including cost and clinician experience,” the guidelines say.
Treatment with the synthetic antibody Regeneron was approved by the WHO in September, and the guidelines say Sotrovimab can be used in the same category of patients.
WHO’s Covid treatment recommendations are regularly updated based on new data from clinical trials.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from an aggregated feed.)
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