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Last week, the UK government issued a statement encouraging the use of tocilizumab and sarilumab, medications initially developed to improve arthritis symptoms, to treat severe COVID-19 cases. The recommendations are based on findings posted January 7 to the preprint server medRxiv that suggest the drugs could reduce the risk of death by 24 percent.
The study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, evaluated around 800 patients in intensive care with severe COVID-19. Around half received the standard of care while 353 received tocilizumab and 48 received sarilumab. The researchers found that 35.8 percent of those given standard care died, compared with 28 percent who received tocilizumab and 22.2 percent who were given sarilumab.
“This is a significant step forward for increasing survival of patients in intensive care with COVID-19. The data shows that tocilizumab, and likely sarilumab, speed up and improve the odds of recovery in ...
