Check out everything you must know about DRDO’s 2-DG oral Covid drug:
The Drugs Controller General of India announced that they have made a new drug named 2-deoxy-D-glucose or 2-DG drug that can significantly reduce a covid patient’s stay in the hospital.
Cleared by the government for critical cases, it reduces the need for medical oxygen by stopping the virus to grow more in the infected cells.
Talking about it, the Ministry of Defense said: The drug comes in powder form in a sachet, which is taken orally by dissolving it in water.
From testing of DRDO and Dr Reddy Lab’s 2-DG (2-deoxy-D-glucose) on coronavirus in cell culture at CCMB to successfully clearing the phase 3 trials, it will now be used on moderate to severe COVID-19 patients. DCGI approval has come.https://t.co/91be7W2aKU
— CCMB (@ccmb_csir) May 8, 2021
As per the Ministry, the patients who were given the drug started to show improvements by the third day, and their medical oxygen needs were reduced. The comparison here was made with patients who were not given the drug. The drug also doesn’t have any worrisome side effects.
The ministry said: “In the ongoing second COVID-19 wave, a large number of patients are facing severe oxygen dependency and need hospitalization. The drug is expected to save precious lives due to the mechanism of operation of the drug in infected cells. This also reduces the hospital stay of COVID-19 patients”.
Demographic breakdown by Age for India and Italy, and Death Rate by Age for #COVID19.
https://t.co/HHzqdl89kl pic.twitter.com/3kWRRVcdVd— Anand Ranganathan (@ARanganathan72) March 11, 2020
Speaking about the availability of the drug, Reddy said arrangements for proper distribution across all hospitals need to be done and a team is already working on the same.
The Ministry was working on the drug right after the pandemic broke out in the country in 2020, it got approved after almost a year. The approval of the drug comes at a time when India has been battling a record-breaking wave of coronavirus pandemic.
