A cheap antidepressant, available to all, can reduce the risk of severe Covid-19 disease by nearly a third in people at high risk, US researchers have reported.
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A study of about 1,500 patients in Brazil showed that those who took the drug, known as fluvoxamine, were less likely to progress to a severe illness and require hospitalization, he writes. CNN.
The drug, sold under the brand name Luvox, is a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) most commonly used to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and depression.
But it can also affect inflammation, said Dr. Angela Reiersen, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Washington in St. Louis. Louis, who worked on the study published in The Lancet Global Health.
“Fluvoxamine can reduce the production of inflammatory molecules called cytokines, which can be triggered by SARS-CoV-2 infection,” Reiersen said in a statement.
The drug can also reduce blood platelets, which can affect the clotting effects of coronavirus infection.
A 10-day course of fluvoxamine costs only $ 4
Reierson and colleagues treated 741 volunteers with Covid-19 with 100 mg of fluvoxamine twice daily for 10 days, while 756 volunteers received a placebo.
Of the patients who received fluvoxamine, 79 – or about 11% – needed hospital treatment, compared with almost 16% of those who received placebo. There was a 5% decrease in absolute risk and a 32% decrease in relative risk.
More studies are needed to see if the drug could be added to treatments for coronavirus patients, but it is cheap. “A 10-day course of fluvoxamine costs about $ 4,” the researchers wrote.
It is not a cure, but if the medicine can help keep patients out of the hospital, it would be helpful.
“Given the safety, tolerability, ease of use, low cost and widespread availability of fluvoxamine, these findings could influence national and international guidelines for the clinical management of COVID-19,” they concluded.
The role played by Prozac in the treatment of Covid-19 is also being studied
A related drug, Prozac or fluoxetine, is also cheaper and even more available, but researchers said the drug should be studied to see if it could help.
“It is now crucial to determine whether there is a class effect and whether these drugs can be used interchangeably for COVID-19,” they wrote.
It was not a perfect study, they noted. It was done in Brazil, and patients had a higher hospitalization rate than patients with Covid-19 in other clinical trials.
“There is no standard of care for the early treatment of COVID-19 and different groups promote different interventions, including some of those evaluated in this study and in our previous studies. Depending on the progression of this disease, some patients with many risk factors recover quickly, while others with fewer risk factors may not recover, “they wrote.
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