Punjab government approves the drug Actemra to treat coronavirus patients.
Till now, the fastest increase of cases in Pakistan is in Punjab. Punjab government has approved to treat patients with the 400 mg injectable drug. It is an interleukin-6 inhibitor which has the generic name of tocilizumab. This drug is prescribed to patients who develop abnormal levels of IL-6 in the blood or develop some lung complications.
IL-6 is an endogenous chemical that causes inflammation.
The price of this, “each dose” that is injected is rupees 60,000 that is mandatory to be injected at least two times to treat coronavirus at an intensive care unit in a life-threatening condition. Moreover, the health department has allowed purchasing 20 doses of medicine to all teaching hospitals in Lahore.
Whole senior staff of medical universities attended the meeting; vice-chancellors, principals, leading pulmonologists, members of the government’s Corona Expert Advisory Group, and some senior professors also were part of the meeting. In this meeting, the chief executive of Lahore’s Mayo Hospital Dr. Asad Aslam Khan presented a study concerning the use of the drug on complicated cases in ICU.
He also said that this Actemra drug recovered 80-90 percent of the cases who had damaged lungs and severe pneumonia.
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