Treatment overview

This toolkit is a guide of the available drug treatments for adult patients hospitalised with COVID-19. It does currently not cover supportive treatments, e.g. oxygen, thromboprophylaxis, pain relief, anxiolytics, etc.

Below is a quick overview of the available therapeutic management based on disease severity. This section does not contain exact indications or contraindications and hence should not be used as a standalone guide, but rather as an overview of which treatments to consider in which scenario. For more details follow the links to the specific pages for each drug.

• Antiviral therapy (nirmatrelvir/ritonavir, molnupiravir, or remdesivir) may be appropropriate in high-risk patients only.
• Dexamethasone, IL-6-inhibitors or JAK-inhibitors should not be used.

Consider the following treatments:

• Remdesivir in high risk patients (weak recommendation)
• Dexamethasone (strong recommendation)
• IL-6-inhibitor if O₂Sat on room air (RA) <92% AND CRP ≥75mg/L (strong recommendation)
• JAK-inhibitor (Baricitinib)

Consider the following treatments:

• Dexamethasone (strong recommendation)
• IL-6-inhibitor if within 48h of respiratory support
• JAK-inhibitor (Baricitinib)

An illustrative flow diagram of the treatments in various scenarios is available as a flow-chart and also in an interactive Q&A format. It is important to refer to the exact indications and contraindications in the respective summaries of product characteristics and the text below for each drug.

For severely unwell patients and those who fall outside defined criteria consider seeking specialist infectious diseases advice - see About Regional Infectious Diseases Unit (RIDU) for contact details.