'We are still not ready to protect the population'

Remember the lessons of Covid and spend more on health security. Robin McKie hears scientists’ views

- Robin McKie hears scientists’ views

On 9 March 2020, Martin Landray was studying the likely impact of Covid-19 as it started to sweep Britain. What was needed, he realised, was a method for pinpointing cheap, effective drugs that might limit the impact of the Sars-CoV-2 virus that was filling UK hospitals with dangerously ill patients.

Within 10 days, Landray - working with Oxford University colleague Peter Horby - had set up Recovery, a drug-testing programme that involved thousands of doctors and nurses working with tens of thousands of Covid-19 patients in UK hospitals.

Trials were carried out in wards crammed with sick individuals, and these quickly showed that several overhyped medicines such as the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine were ineffective.

At the same time, dexamethasone, a cheap treatment for inflammation and arthritis, was found to reduce deaths by a third among patients on ventilators, a discovery that saved more than a million lives across the planet.

Recovery was one of the UK's greatest scientific triumphs in the battle against Covid, though Landray remains cautious. “It was a great achievement but I have to say we were lucky that we got approval to set up the programme so quickly,” he told the Observer last week.