The World Health Organization on Tuesday hailed a “breakthrough” steroid treatment for the coronavirus, boosting hopes that pandemic deaths can be reduced, but a growing new cluster in China sparked fears of a second wave of infections.
Surging death tolls in the Americas and South Asia, plus a new cluster of cases in Beijing, have raised fresh doubts about how soon the world can bring COVID-19 under control.
Steroid treatment for coronavirus shows promising results
In the latest sign of the economic toll, US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell warned that the world’s biggest economy is unlikely to recover as long as there is “significant uncertainty” about the pandemic.
But news of the first proven effective treatment for COVID-19, a widely available steroid, gave cause for fresh hope.
Read more: People on steroids may be more at risk of COVID-19
“This is great news and I congratulate the Government of the UK, the University of Oxford, and the many hospitals and patients in the UK who have contributed to this lifesaving scientific breakthrough,” said the head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Researchers led by a team from the University of Oxford administered the drug, dexamethasone, to more than 2,000 severely ill COVID-19 patients.
Among those who could only breathe with the help of a ventilator, it reduced deaths by 35 percent.
“Dexamethasone is inexpensive, on the shelf, and can be used immediately to save lives worldwide,” said Peter Horby, professor of Emerging Infectious Diseases in the Nuffield Department of Medicine at Oxford.
Inexpensive steroid is the first drug shown to reduce deaths from covid-19 https://t.co/w9Xsm7yvny
— Jonathan Chevreau (@JonChevreau) June 17, 2020
Britain’s Health Secretary Matt Hancock said patients would start to receive the drug immediately.
China cluster, India spike in coronavirus cases
But there were fresh reminders of the lingering threat from Asia.
China, which had largely brought its outbreak under control, reported another 31 new infections in Beijing, bringing the total from a fresh cluster linked to a wholesale food market to 137 in six days.
The capital’s airports cancelled at least 1,255 flights Wednesday, nearly 70 percent of all services, state media reported.
The new outbreak has led authorities to implement mass testing, put neighbourhoods on lockdown, close schools and urge residents to not to leave the city.
And in India, the world’s second-most populous country, saw its COVID-19 death toll shoot up by more than 2,000 to nearly 12,000 fatalities.
Read more: Second global wave of coronavirus nigh amid cases in New Zealand and China
More than 8.1 million people have now been infected by the virus since it emerged in China late last year, with nearly 440,000 deaths so far.
Brazil, which has the second-highest caseload and death toll in the world, reported its biggest daily jump in new cases since the start of the pandemic: 34,918.
Peru’s death toll, meanwhile, surged past 7,000.
And the United States, the hardest-hit country, passed a grim milestone: with 116,854 deaths, the country has now seen more people die from the pandemic than in World War I.
Fed chief Powell once again pledged the bank will use all its policy tools to help ensure recovery from the outbreak, which he said has inflicted the worst pain on low-income and minority groups.
"India is in the middle of a number of border disputes right now that have escalated into skirmishing, not just with China." I talk India and China, North and South Korea, Trump and policing, spikes in #COVID19 on World #In60Seconds (plus). @gzeromedia: https://t.co/hBh9XTdPla pic.twitter.com/TsRZ8HpyZM
— ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) June 16, 2020
But the economic contraction in the April-June quarter “is likely to be the most severe on record,” he said.
Beyond the Americas, Iran and Saudi Arabia have all reported sharp increases in deaths and infections in recent days.
Fans, please stay away
European nations including Belgium, France, Germany and Greece have begun lifting border restrictions, hoping to save the summer tourism season.
But life is still far from normal.
In Britain, the Premier League football season resumes on Wednesday, but in empty stadiums.
Read more: Tokyo 2020 Olympics countdown cancelled amid pandemic
The league urged supporters not to congregate outside the grounds, risking new clusters of infections.
It plans to pipe crowd chants into stadiums, place cardboard cut-outs of supporters in the stands and use live video fan walls, but in the words of Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola, things risk being “a little bit weird”.
Steroid treatment for coronavirus or Russian drug ‘Avifavir’?
The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and the Russian pharmaceutical company ‘KhimRar’ developed Avifavir, which is free to Russians under the country’s national health insurance scheme. The international chemical name of the medication is Favipiravir. It was invented in Japan and ‘KhimRar’ synthesized the new formula.
We foresee a high demand for Avifavir in Russia (and) we also received requests for deliveries of Avifavir from more than ten countries,” the Director of the RDIF, Kirill Dmitriev, explained. “The first results of clinical trials make us believe this drug is one of the most promising in the world.”
Read more: Will Russian anti-coronavirus drug ‘Avifavir’ be effective?
The fund’s website indicates that the medicine “demonstrated high efficiency” during clinical trials. For example, in the first four days of treatment, 65 percent of the 40 patients who took Avifavir tested negative for Covid-19 and, by the tenth day, the number of patients posting negative results increased to 90 percent.
AFP with additional input by GVS News Desk
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