Over 8 million COVID-19 cases reported worldwide: WHO
Jun 17, 2020
Geneva [Switzerland], June 17 : Over eight million cases of coronavirus has been recorded globally, said World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Wednesday.
In a briefing, Ghebreyesus said that six million cases have been reported in the past two months.
"The world has now recorded more than eight million cases of COVID-19. In the first two months, 85,000 cases were reported. In the past two months, six million cases have been reported," he said.
"There have been more than 435,000 deaths and in the Americas, Africa and South Asia, cases of COVID-19 are still rapidly rising. However, there are green shoots of hope, which show that together through global solidarity, humanity can overcome this pandemic," he added.
Ghebreyesus said that dexamethasone, a common steroid, has been shown to have a beneficial effect on patients severely ill with COVID-19.
"According to early findings shared with WHO, for patients on oxygen alone, dexamethasone treatment was shown to reduce mortality by about one-fifth. For patients requiring a ventilator, mortality was reduced by about one-third," he said.
United Kingdom's 'RECOVERY' trial has emerged as a new hope in the fight against coronavirus pandemic with researchers claiming that dexamethasone, the inexpensive and widely available steroid, is the first drug that has proven to reduce deaths in COVID-19 patients.
