"At the moment, the corticosteroid dexamethasone is still the only therapeutic agent that has shown efficacy against COVID-19 for patients with severe disease," the head of WHO was quoted as saying by TASS.
He recalled that as a result of a large-scale study of the effectiveness of drugs in June, the WHO concluded that it was necessary to stop trials of hydroxychloroquine, and in July announced that patients would no longer receive lopinavir and ritonavir.
"Interim results from this study now show that the other two drugs, remdesivir and interferon, have little effect on preventing mortality or shortening the length of hospital stay," Gebreyesus added.
Earlier, the head of the WHO, speaking about the results of the initial clinical trials of the steroid dexamethasone in the treatment of COVID-19, noted that this is the first treatment that reduces mortality in patients requiring mechanical ventilation.
State Duma deputy, former chief sanitary doctor of Russia Gennady Onishchenko, commenting on the NSN test results of dexamethasone, said that "one of the already existing corticosteroid drugs" was tested.
At the same time, he stressed that with these drugs "you always need to be very careful", since they "jam the endocrine system" of the body.