RE: Holgate Independent Article / PR11 Jan 2021 09:37
Initial clinical trials suggested the odds of patients developing serious disease were reduced by between 72 per cent and 82 per cent, and that those admitted to hospital were more than twice as likely to recover. Inhaled interferon beta could markedly cut the number of patients admitted to NHS hospitals. It could be helpful in care homes too.
Scientists from around the world have contacted Synairgen, a company I co-founded from Southampton University, to find out more – but in Britain, these developments have been overshadowed by excitement over vaccines, with novel treatments still struggling to make progress in clinical trials.
The government is focusing a lot of its efforts on a hospital trial called Recovery, which has 21,000 patients so far across 176 NHS hospitals and is looking at a handful of prospective, mostly “off the shelf” treatments.
The Recovery study identified last year that dexamethasone, a steroid treatment, could cut deaths by as much as a third in intensive care. A number of other concepts, including use of blood plasma from convalescent patients and aspirin, are being assessed. Recovery is a tremendous platform – but we need an ecumenical approach.
Britain has one of the finest drug development industries in the world. We’ve proven that we can be a global leader in creating and deploying novel approaches in the life sciences. There’s a real opportunity to show global leadership in potential Covid-19 breakthrough treatments too.
Great strategies often disintegrate when confronted with reality, and who knows, the aim of controlling the virus by the spring using vaccines alone might yet come unstuck. Not much, to date, has gone to plan in this crisis.
It is absolutely essential that, as a nation, we prioritise research into helping sick people get better, as well as preventing them from getting ill in the first place. Covid-19, in one form or another, is with us to stay. All of us recognise the real human suffering in front of our eyes, so we really do need proven better treatments than those being currently offered.
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