A test published clinical note that the fluvoxamine, a antidepressant, low cost, can reduce hospitalizations among patients with Covid-19 with higher risk profiles. This drug is also used against obsessive compulsive disorder.
“Fluvoxamine, a low-cost drug that already exists, lowers the risk of having to seek advanced care in a high-risk population,” concluded the researchers of this study published in Lancet Global Health, a publication linked to the Lancet reference journal.
The study authors conducted trials in a dozen Brazilian hospitals to estimate whether it can avoid hospitalizations of patients with Covid-19 who receive it quickly after detection of the virus.
Previous studies already pointed out interesting effects of fluvoxamine against Covid-19, but they were carried out with small samples and with a methodology that offered uncertain conclusions.
In this case, the analysis was carried out with 700 patients and as many treated with placebos, without the doctors really knowing what treatment they were administering. All patients had at least one risk factor: over 50 years, smoker, diabetic, not vaccinated.
Fluvoxamine Clinical Trial Results
The study measured how many patients in each group were eventually hospitalized after 28 days or they had to spend more than six hours in an emergency service. 11 percent of patients treated with fluvoxamine they found themselves in one of these situations, versus 16 percent of the placebo group.
“This study clearly suggests that fluvoxamine is an effective, safe, inexpensive and fairly well-tolerated option for treating non-hospitalized Covid-19 patients,” says researcher Otavio Berwanger, not linked to the trial, in a comment to the journal .
At the same time, it points out the limits of the study as it does not address the effect of the drug on deaths and that its conclusions on hospitalizations they are weakened by having mixed two criteria.
The authors explain that they took into account the stay in emergency services because Brazilian hospitals were saturated by the pandemic and sometimes could not take care of patients who required it.
With information from AFP
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