Despite the governments efforts to curb hoarding of essential medicines, otherwise widely available cheap medicine disappears from pharmacies in Islamabad. The Islamabad Capital Territory Administration (ICTA) has decided to launch an action against the drug stores involved in hoarding dexamethasone drug, which is being prescribed to coronavirus patients. On selling of dexamethasone in hiked prices, the pharmacists will face action legal consequences.
Scientists at the University of Oxford said they have identified the first drug proven to reduce coronavirus-related deaths, after a 6,000-patient trial of the drug in Britain showed that a low-cost steroid could reduce deaths significantly for hospitalized patients. The steroid, dexamethasone, reduced deaths by a third in patients receiving ventilation, and by a fifth in patients receiving only oxygen treatment.