Coronavirus: Saudi Arabia begins using steroid dexamethasone to treat severe cases

Riyadh’s decision followed positive findings in the UK, but scepticism in the US

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  Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Health is now offering drive-thru coronavirus testing centers for testing people inside their cars in Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam while also offering testing services at primary health care centres. Courtesy Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Health

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  Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Health is now offering drive-thru coronavirus testing centers for testing people inside their cars in Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam while also offering testing services at primary health care centres. Courtesy Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Health

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  Workers disinfect the ground around the Kaaba, the cubic building at the Grand Mosque, in the city of Makkah. AP

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  The sun sets at the site of the Grand Mosque in the city of Makkah, Saudi Arabia. AP

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  A woman wears a protective suit, as she shops at a supermarket, following the outbreak of the coronavirus disease in Riyadh. REUTERS

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  A man wearing a face mask as a precaution against the spread of the coronavirus is reflected in the window of a store as he buys herbs in Jiddah. AP

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  A worker, wearing a face mask as a precaution against the coronavirus, carries a load at Jiddah's historical district. AP

Saudi Arabian authorities started this week using a steroid to treat severe coronavirus cases after the drug was hailed as effective in the UK, despite scepticism in the US.

The health ministry said on Wednesday that use of dexamethasone has started in “hospitalised patients and those in intensive care units, and the ones on oxygen”.

Daily confirmed cases in Saudi Arabia exceeded 4,000 for the fifth straight day on Thursday, with the health ministry announcing 4,757 new cases in the last 24 hours and 48 deaths.

The latest data brings the official infections tally to 145,991 with 1,139 deaths.

Saudi authorities have been cautioning that the number of people in critical condition in the Kingdom also rose sharply in the past few weeks to 1,877.

Oxford University said this week that a study it conducted showed that the anti-inflammatory drug reduced death rates by about a third among the most severe patients in hospitals.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that “he chances of dying from Covid-19 "have been greatly reduced by this treatment".

But some prominent doctors in the US were sceptical about dexamethasone, saying they needed to see the raw data.

They pointed to The Lancet, the leading British medical journal, which withdrew this month an article about a study on hydroxychloroquine and the coronavirus over defects in the data.