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Steroid’s COVID-19 benefits confirmed; spotlight on immune cells

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The following is a brief roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.

Full dexamethasone trial results released

The full results of a large randomized clinical trial in Britain – the gold-standard of tests – looking at the steroid dexamethasone confirm the benefits in its use in COVID-19 patients that were hinted at in early findings issued last month.

The results, released on Friday in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed benefits for people with advanced or moderate disease.

Overall, 2 104 COVID-19 patients were randomly assigned to receive dexamethasone and 4 321 to receive usual care.

Four weeks later, dexamethasone had reduced the risk of death by 36% among patients who needed mechanical ventilation when they entered the study, and by 18% among those who were receiving oxygen without mechanical ventilation.

The drug did not improve survival among patients who were not using oxygen or mechanical ventilation.

In an editorial, Dr. H. Clifford Lane and Dr. Anthony Fauci from the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said the results show the crucial importance of large, well-designed, carefully run, randomized controlled trials.

Even during a pandemic, they said, when it might be tempting to simply “give all therapies a chance,” in order for patients’ outcomes to improve “there will need to be fewer small or inconclusive studies and more studies such as the dexamethasone trial.”

Immune cells may recognize the coronavirus years later.

Researchers in Singapore are not worried that antibodies to the novel coronavirus fade quickly.

More important, they said, is that immune system cells called T cells and B cells “remember” the virus and can trigger an immune response.

As reported on Wednesday in the journal Nature, the researchers looked for “memory” T cells in 36 COVID-19 survivors, 23 survivors of the 2003 coronavirus that caused SARS, and 37 people who never had either illness.

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