With almost a year since the coronavirus (Covid-19) disease was declared a pandemic, the viral disease continues to wreak havoc across the world. There is still very less we know about the disease and the researchers are working day and night to gather more and more information about the viral disease and its cure.
In a major win against the Covid-19, researchers have identified that an Arthritis drug can help in reducing the mortality rate in elderly people by 71%. As per the findings, a daily pill of baricitinib along with standard care can reduce the deaths by 71% in Covid-19 patients with moderate or severe infection.
The drug is marketed under the name Olumiant and is available for rheumatoid arthritis for only three years now.
The latest findings can be encouraging for medics as they are hoping the arthritis drug could help save the most vulnerable to coronavirus are elderly people.
The research is led by the researchers at Karolinska Institute in Sweden. The study has been published in the journal Science Advances.
As many as 53,945,763 people have been infected by the Covid-19 across the world. Most of the fresh cases were reported from the United States and Europe. While 1,311,427 others have succumbed to the disease.
Meanwhile, on the vaccine front, a US-based pharmaceutical company recently announced that the vaccine, which is developing in joint cooperation with Germany’s BioNTech is 90% effective in preventing infections in the ongoing Phase 3 trials.
The findings were based on an interim analysis conducted after 94 participants contracted the illness. The trial will continue until 164 cases have occurred. The preliminary results pave the way for the companies to seek an emergency-use authorization from regulators if further research shows the shot is also safe.
“Other very large trials occurring now include COV-BARRIER, and this will help create a fuller picture of the benefits and side effects of the oral medication (a small number of the patients in our study needed to stop the treatment due to problems with liver function). Further trials comparing baricitinib to other drugs in Covid-19 patients would also be helpful in improving outcomes,” Professor Justin Stebbing, co-lead author of the study from the Department of Surgery and Cancer at Imperial said.