Biotech Values

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Antidepressant Significantly Reduces Covid-19 Hospitalization
Patients who received the low-cost and widely available fluvoxamine were far less likely to be hospitalized in a clinical trial

https://www.wsj.com/articles/antidepressant-significantly-reduces-covid-19-hospitalization-11635373800?mod=breakingnews

For their trial of fluvoxamine, Dr. Mills and his colleagues looked at 1,497 patients in Brazil who had Covid-19 and at least one known risk factor for severe disease, such as diabetes, heart disease, lung disease, or being 50 years old or older. Researchers gave around half the patients fluvoxamine twice a day over 10 days while the other half received a placebo, and compared rates of hospitalization between the two groups.

Patients were considered hospitalized if they went to a specialized Covid-19 emergency center for Covid-19 symptoms and had to be monitored there for more than six hours, or if they were admitted to a hospital with Covid-19 symptoms. The study didn’t enroll patients who had been vaccinated for Covid-19.

The researchers found that patients who received fluvoxamine were 32% less likely to be hospitalized than those in the placebo group. Among patients who stuck to the regimen closely and reported taking the drug or placebo for at least eight days of the 10-day course, there was an even bigger difference—a 66% reduction in hospitalization and 91% reduction in death rates.