Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the outcome was of the trial on the use of inhaled budesonide to treat older people with covid-19 symptoms who are not hospitalised.
Inhaled budesonide, a corticosteroid, was entered into the PRINCIPLE clinical trial in November 2020 for the treatment of non-hospitalised patients with COVID-19 who are 65 years old and over or 50 years old and over with an underlying health condition. The final trial results were peer reviewed by an independent panel of experts and published in The Lancet on 10 August 2021. The PRINCIPLE trial reported a three-day median benefit in self-reported recovery for patients with COVID-19 in the community setting who received inhaled budesonide.