The chance of surviving Covid
Analysis by the University of Bristol shows the
proportion of patients dying from the infectious disease in the ICU has reduced by a third since March.
Scientists reviewed more than 20 studies from around the
world which involved 10,000 volunteers, and they say the finding shows doctors are getting better at
treating the disease, which is still poorly understood after more than six months of the outbreak.
It is hoped that survival rates will improve further still
after Dexamethasone, a steroid, became the first drug scientifically proven to
treat severe Covid infection.
The drug was found to reduce the risk of death in patients
on ventilation by as much as 35 per cent and patients on oxygen by 20
percent.
A small number of scientists believe the virus is actually
weakening and patients are now surviving infections that would have killed them
before.
Viruses are known to change over time because they are
subject to random genetic mutations as the infection tries to gain an
evolutionary advantage.
If a virus becomes less dangerous to its host - that is, it
causes fewer symptoms or less death - it may find that it is able to live
longer and reproduce more.
The family of viruses which cause the common cold are one
example of infections that have weakened over thousands of years. But there is
no concrete evidence this is happening with COVID-19 yet.
The new study, published in the journal Anaesthesis,
examined 24 studies conducted in Europe, Asia and North America involving
10,150 ICU patients.
The analysis suggests the death rate has dropped from 59.5
per cent at the end of March to 42 per cent at the end of May - a relative
decrease of almost a third.
ICU mortality did not differ significantly across continents
despite some variations in admission criteria and treatments delivered, the
study observed.
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