On Sunday, Greece approved colchicine, a cheap drug for heart disease, to be included in the protocol of oral treatments for patients with Covid-19.
The Committee of Experts of the Ministry of Health gave the “green light” after the positive results of a large Canadian study in which Greece participated.
The study showed that colchicine administration to patients with Covid-19 “reduced mortality by 44%, hospitalization by 25% and the need for intubation by 50%,” said for Athens-Macedonia cardiology professor Spyros Deftereos, who coordinated the study. in Greece. News Agency (AMNA).
The committee decided to include the drug colchicine for use in outpatients.
However, the administration will be done according to the doctor’s prescription in certain categories of patients with a positive molecular test of the coronavirus.
These are all patients over the age of 60 who have a positive molecular test, whether or not they have underlying diseases.
Also, for patients aged 18 to 60 years with at least one underlying disease or fever over 38 years of age for at least 48 hours.
Canadian study
The study of Covid-19 treatment with colchicine was conducted by a team of researchers at the Montreal Heart Institute.
For Dr. Jean-Claude Tardif, who led the study, this is a “major scientific discovery,” he said. Colchicine is the first “effective oral medicine to treat patients outside the hospital.”
“In order to be able to offer this, from Quebec and to the planet, we are very happy,” Tardif said.
The ColCorona study involved 4,159 patients whose diagnosis of COVID-19 had been confirmed by a nasopharyngeal test (PCR).
Reducing congestion in hospitals
This is the first hope for patients who have COVID, who are worried and who hope they will have no complications, Tardif said. Previously, “there were no tablets that could be taken orally and reduce the risks”.
Tardif said he believes prescribing the drug could help quickly reduce congestion in hospitals and reduce health care costs in Quebec and elsewhere.
Our study showed the effectiveness of colchicine treatment to prevent the phenomenon of major inflammatory storm and to reduce complications related to COVID-19, he said.
Because colchicine is a well-understood drug, it could be used very quickly to treat people with COVID-19, says the researcher.
“Colchicine is as old as it is – we’ve been treating gout with it for hundreds of years – so it’s available in pharmacies,” Tardif said in French.
So any doctor, tomorrow, who reads this, can definitely decide to prescribe if he wants.
On Friday night, Quebec Prime Minister Francois Legault called the study “big news” on social media.