Although people get vaccinated, a researcher says that effective treatment could save lives in the meantime or help manage vaccine-resistant variants.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Entrance to the University of Utah Hospital in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, April 14, 2020. U. researchers enroll COVID-19 patients in a new study of a potential treatment.
A decades-old antidepressant drug can stop the coronavirus from causing serious illness – and the University of Utah is enrolling patients in a study to confirm that 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 infectious disease professor Dr. Adam Spivak said on Thursday that “there is a lot of research suggesting that it acts as a very powerful anti-inflammatory.”
This is important because severe cases of COVID-19 are likely linked to inflammation caused by out-of-control immune responses that trigger the virus, Spivak said.
In the last year, researchers have been studying 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 to Tylenol, to … drugs that we use for certain types of cancer,” Spivak said. “There have been a very rapid number of studies that have looked at different anti-inflammatory drugs to address severe COVID.”
To date, 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 coronavirus treatment.
Researchers at the University of Washington in St. Louis in the fall completed their first studies with fluvoxamine and found that none of the patients who took it required hospital care – compared to 8% of coronavirus patients who took placebo, Spivak said.
The drug has the same cellular mechanism as hydroxychloroquine, which then-President Donald Trump claimed at the beginning of the pandemic as a “miracle” remedy – but later proved to be ineffective and possibly dangerous in treating coronavirus.
This cellular mechanism is about 20 times stronger in fluvoxamine than in hydroxychloroquine, Spivak said.
The United States is now working with the University of Washington to enroll coronavirus patients in Utah in a follow-up study. 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 little late in the game for effective treatment for coronavirus. But with the virus still widespread and mutant, he said, it’s important to be prepared for a possible vaccine-resistant variant.
“People continue to receive COVID and will continue until we vaccinate enough people,” he said.