Coronavirus: Steroid Drugs

(asked on 11th February 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the implications for its policies of the Oxford University study on the efficacy of inhaled Budesonide in preventing the development of severe covid-19 symptoms; and to what extent the use of inhaled steroids could be effective in treating all variants of covid-19.


Answered by
Jo Churchill Portrait
Jo Churchill
Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This question was answered on 2nd March 2021

We are aware of the STOIC study on the efficacy of inhaled Budesonide. STOIC is a Phase II trial with 146 participants. Phase II trials can indicate whether a treatment has potential to benefit patients, and positive results are normally followed by larger scale Phase III trials.

The Phase III PRINCIPLE trial, which currently has over 4,200 patients enrolled to date, is also trialling inhaled budesonide as a trial arm, the results for which are imminent. This will help us to assess whether this drug provides an effective way of treating COVID-19 in community settings.

Reticulating Splines