SALT LAKE CITY: A drug used as an antidepressant has also helped patients with COVID-19 recover from the virus, small studies revealed.
Researchers at the University of Utah Health believe the drug works and are now investigating with a larger study to confirm the remarkable results of two previous trials.
The generic drug, fluvoxamine, was developed 40 years ago as an antidepressant, primarily to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder. Sure, it only costs $ 0.60 a pill and it’s a big promise.
“We need a drug that prevents people from getting sick when they have COVID, and that’s what we expect fluvoxamine to do,” said Dr. Adam Spivak, an assistant professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Utah Health.
For the past year, since the pandemic began, researchers have been trying to find this pill. Spivak said fluvoxamine could be that treatment.
“This is a huge gap in our arsenal,” he said. “We’ve spent a lot of time these days thinking about vaccines. We’d love to prevent the disease. But people continue to get COVID and will continue to do so until we have enough vaccination.”
After a year of learning about the virus, researchers now believe it is the human response to the virus, rather than the virus itself, that is making people so sick.
“There’s this huge inflammatory response that puts sick people down and lands them in the hospital,” Spivak said.
Could a 40-year-old antidepressant be a possible treatment for COVID-19?
Researchers have found that the drug fluvoxamine appears to prevent some of the complications of the disease and makes hospitalization and the need for supplemental oxygen less likely. https://t.co/fHhASCk7wd
– University of Washington at St. Louis (@WUSTL) March 19, 2021
It is believed that fluvoxamine targets this inflammatory response because it has anti-inflammatory properties. That’s why psychiatrists at the University of Washington in St. Louis. Louis decided that they would test fluvoxamine in patients with COVID-19.
At one trial, they gave fluvoxamine to 150 people with confirmed COVID-19. Among those who obtained placebo, 8% ended up in hospital.
Spivak said, “Eighty people received fluvoxamine and zero of those people got sicker. They all recovered.”
By about ten days, people taking fluvoxamine had largely recovered.
–Dr. Adam Spivak, Assistant Professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Utah Health
There were similar results in November in a real trial after a COVID-19 outbreak on a racetrack in California.
“By about ten days, people taking fluvoxamine had recovered largely,” Spivak said.
Researchers at the University of Utah are part of a larger, multi-site trial called Stop COVID 2, with the goal of enrolling 1,100 people. You must be at least 30 years old and have confirmed COVID-19 with symptoms that started in the last six days.
“We hope to get it as soon as possible, to confirm that fluvoxamine works and we have it in our arsenal, or we know it doesn’t work,” Spivak said.
The researchers conducted the entire trial remotely, sending medications and supplies to participants. It doesn’t matter where you live to participate.
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Jed Boal