Researchers at the University of Utah studying a possible COVID-19 treatment: an old antidepressant

Although people get vaccinated, a researcher says effective treatment could save lives in the meantime or help cope with vaccine-resistant variants.

A decades-long antidepressant drug can prevent coronavirus from causing serious illness, and the University of Utah is enrolling patients in a study to confirm if it works.

The drug, fluvoxamine, is an early selective inhibitor of serotonin reuptake, a common type of antidepressant, similar to Prozac or Zoloft, developed in the 1980s.

But, Professor Adam Spivak, a professor of infectious diseases, said on Thursday, “there is a lot of research suggesting that it acts as a very strong anti-inflammatory.”

This is important because severe cases of COVID-19 are likely related to inflammation caused by uncontrolled immune responses that trigger the virus, Spivak said.

Over the past year, researchers have conducted trials on drugs with anti-inflammatory effects, from ibuprofen to the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine.

“We have a lot of anti-inflammatory drugs on the shelf, from Motrin and Tylenol, to … medicines we use for specific cancers,” Spivak said. “There have been a very rapid series of trials on different anti-inflammatory drugs to treat severe COVID.”

So far only one of these drugs, a steroid called dexamethasone, “has really worked” and has been recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for the treatment of coronavirus.

But researchers at the University of Washington at St. Louis in the fall completed the first trials with fluvoxamine and found that none of the patients who took it required hospital care, compared to 8% of coronavirus patients who took the placebo, Spivak said.

The drug has the same cellular mechanism as hydroxychloroquine, which then-President Donald Trump announced at the beginning of the pandemic as a “miracle” cure, but was later shown to be ineffective and possibly dangerous. in the treatment of coronavirus.

This cellular mechanism is approximately 20 times more potent in fluvoxamine than in hydroxychloroquine, Spivak said.

The U. is now working with the University of Washington to enroll coronavirus patients in Utah in a follow-up trial. Researchers are looking for people who have recently tested positive for COVID-19 and have developed symptoms within six days, who are at risk for serious illness and who have not received a coronavirus vaccine.

Spivak acknowledged that with the rise in vaccinations and declining cases, it may seem a bit late in the game to get effective treatment for coronavirus. But with the virus still spreading and mutating, he said, it’s important to be prepared for a potential vaccine-resistant variant.

“People continue to receive COVID and will continue to do so until we vaccinate enough people,” he said.