How does DRDO medicine work against Corona? Learn the answers- At the moment there is no effective medicine in the world to fight the coronavirus. But in the meantime, the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) has approved the emergency use of the drug Kovid developed by DRDO. It is being claimed that this drug can prove to be very effective. The ministry said that clinical trials revealed that 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2-DG) drug helps in the quick recovery of hospitalized patients as well as reduces the dependence on oxygen. It is expected that this medicine will start being available in the next few weeks.
According to the Ministry of Defense, the good thing is that this medicine comes in the form of powder and it can be taken easily by dissolving it in water. The Ministry said, 2-DG is a generic molecule and resembles glucose, so its production will be easy and can be made available on a large scale in the country.
How does this medication work?
Due to the ongoing second wave of Kovid-19, a large number of patients are required to be oxygenated and hospitalized. Precious lives are expected to be saved from this drug because this drug works on infected cells. It also reduces the duration of hospitalization of Kovid-19 patients. The 2-DG drug of DRDO accumulates in the virus-infected cell and stops the virus from growing. Working selectively on a virus-infected cell is what makes this medicine special.
This project was started last year
The hospitalized patients recovered quickly with this drug and their dependence on extra oxygen was also reduced. Most of the patients undergoing treatment with 2DG were negative in the RT-PESR test. After the epidemic started early last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for preparations after which DRDO started work on this project.
When did the trials
Phase II trials were conducted from May to October 2020 and it was found that along with being safe, Kovid-19 also helps in the recovery of patients. In the first part of the second phase, 110 patients were tested in six hospitals and in the second part of the second phase in 11 hospitals in the country. DCGI approved the Phase III trial in November 2020. The clinical trial of the third phase was conducted between December 2020 and March 2021 on 220 patients from 27 hospitals across the country. These hospitals are in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
Good drug results
There have been good results of the trials conducted on this drug. The 2-DG drug showed a marked improvement in symptomatic patients, and by the third day, this drug completely eradicated oxygen dependence (42 per cent as compared to 31 per cent) compared to SOC. Similar improvement was also seen in patients above 65 years of age.
