On Friday (Jan 14), the World Health Organisation (WHO) approved two new Covid-19 treatments.

In British medical journal BMJ, WHO experts recommended that Eli Lillys arthritis drug baricitinib when used with corticosteroids showed better survival rates and reduced need for ventilators among severe or critical Covid-19 patients.

Another synthetic antibody, Sotrovimab - by GlaxoSmithKline and Vir Biotechnology was recommended for people with non-serious Covid-19 at highest risk of hospitalisation, such as the elderly, people with immunodeficiencies or chronic diseases such as diabetes, but had insignificant benefits for people not at risk of hospitalization. WHO further said that the effectiveness of Sotrovimab against new variants such as Omicron was still uncertain. 

Three other treatments for Covid-19 have received WHO approval, starting with corticosteroids for severely ill patients in September 2020, arthritis drugs tocilizumab and sarilumab in July and a synthetic antibody treatment Regeneron in September.

Corticosteroids are inexpensive and widely available and fight inflammation, tocilizumab and sarilumab are IL-6 inhibitors that suppress a dangerous overreaction of the immune system to the Sars-CoV-2 virus, Baricitinib  is a Janus kinase inhibitors  but it falls under the same guidelines as the IL-6 inhibitors.

The WHOs Covid-19 treatment recommendations are updated regularly based on new data from clinical trials.

Source: ET Healthworld