The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) is working alongside other agencies to negotiate the purchase of the steroid dexamethasone, which has been shown to be effective in treating COVID-19 patients, for delivery to low- and middle-income countries, according to a joint press release
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 03rd July, 2020) The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) is working alongside other agencies to negotiate the purchase of the steroid dexamethasone, which has been shown to be effective in treating COVID-19 patients, for delivery to low- and middle-income countries, according to a joint press release.
UNICEF has reached an agreement with Unitaid and Wellcome, as part of the World Health Organization's Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator, to help ensure deliveries of the steroid, which is one of the few already-existing treatments that can alleviate severe symptoms of COVID-19, to poor countries.
"With this advanced purchase we aim to ensure equitable access for low- and middle-income countries for treatment of COVID-19 with the life-saving drug dexamethasone, and avoid shortages resulting from high-levels of demand from other parts of the world. It will allow UNICEF, the Global Fund and other partners to procure quality dexamethasone," Unitaid's acting executive director Philippe Duneton said in the press release.
Researchers at the University of Oxford said on June 16 that dexamethasone was the first drug that has been proven to significantly improve survival rates among patients who are severely ill with COVID-19.
The WHO's director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has called on manufacturers to boost production of the inexpensive medicine.
