In a medical breakthrough, a nurse from the UK, who was fully vaccinated against the novel coronavirus, spent 28 days in a Covid coma fighting for her life and woke up after medics provided her with a dose of viagra as an experimental treatment.
According to media reports in the UK, Monica Almeida was admitted to a hospital on November 9 after testing positive for COVID-19 on October 19.
However, after getting admitted, she lost her sense of taste and smell in four days; she began coughing blood, and her oxygen levels dropped. As her condition worsened, she was moved to an intensive care unit of Lincoln County Hospital where she was then put into an induced coma on November 6.
Reports said that she was just 72 hours away from having her ventilator turned off when her condition started to improve. She finally woke up on 14 December after the medics gave her a large dose of viagra.
According to reports, Almeida signed a document before being put in a medically induced coma to willingly take part in a study of experimental drugs.
After the 37-year-old nurse regained consciousness, doctors at Lincoln County Hospital revealed they had been given the erectile dysfunction drug viagra a week after being placed in an induced coma.
Almeida claimed the drug caused her condition to improve.
“It was definitely the Viagra that saved me. Within 48 hours it opened up my airwaves and my lungs started to respond. If you think about how the drug works, it expands your blood vessels. I have asthma and my air sacs needed a little help,” the nurse told The Sun.
“I had a little joke with the consultant after I came round because I knew him. He told me it was the Viagra, I laughed and thought he was joking, but he said ‘no, really, you’ve had a large dose of Viagra’,” she added.
She was finally discharged on Christmas Eve and was able to spend the holidays with her family. However, her complete recovery is expected to take months.
“I could have been gone at just 37 years old, but I suppose I was a bit of a monkey and kept on fighting,” she said.
According to reports, scientists around the world are now experimenting with whether the erectile dysfunction drug can be used to increase oxygen levels in the blood.
