Antidepressant drug could keep COVID patients out of hospital, McMaster study finds
The results of a study co-led by McMaster University suggest that a drug that started to be prescribed in the 1990s for depression and anxiety disorders may offer an effective treatment to keep patients with COVID-19 from being hospitalized.
The purpose of the international drug trial, according to McMaster researcher Ed Mills, was to identify existing drug treatments that could be repurposed for COVID patients.
The oral antidepressant fluvoxamine showed promising results in the trial, conducted with 1,471 patients in Brazil between January and August. The study showed that hospital admissions for patients treated with the drug were reduced up to 30 per cent.
Seven other drugs were shown to be ineffective in the study, including hydroxychloroquine - once promoted by former U.S. president Donald Trump - and ivermectin, a drug typically used to treat parasite infections that had been touted as a miracle cure" earlier in the year.
In a summary of findings posted by McMaster, Mills called fluvoxamine the only treatment that, if administered early, can prevent COVID-19 from becoming a life-threatening illness ... Its effectiveness is one of the most important discoveries we have made since the pandemic began."
He added that fluvoxamine is inexpensive and could be a game changer" for countries struggling with low vaccination rates.
Fluvoxamine may offer relief for COVID patients thanks to its anti-inflammatory effects that can mitigate the impact of the body's extreme immune response to the virus - called a cytokine storm - that can damage organs.
Mills and McMaster researchers Lehana Thabane and Gordon Guyatt will submit their findings for peer-review, and have submitted a report to the U.S.-based National Institutes of Health and the World Health Organization.
Mills said there is more promising news on the COVID-treatment front, with a study published this week in the U.K. that suggests steroid inhaler medication budesonide - also an anti-inflammatory - is similarly effective.
So we've gone from having no treatments available for early treatment of COVID, to having two," he said. The natural extension is, what is the effect of fluvoxamine plus budesonide, and that's where we're going (with research) now."
Jon Wells is a Hamilton-based reporter and feature writer for The Spectator. Reach him via email: jwells@thespec.com