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Two COVID-19 treatments do not appear to have an effect in helping patients recover from the disease faster, suggests a new study.
Researchers looked at two therapies: remdesivir – which is approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat Covid, and hydroxychloroquine, which is not approved.
They found that no medication helped reduce the severity of COVID-19 in hospitalized patients or reduce inflammation, regardless of the patient’s age or how long they had had symptoms.
The team, at University Hospital in Oslo, Norway, say the findings lead the group to “question the antiviral potential” of the treatments.
NOR-Solidarity, part of the WHO-Solidarity trial, looked at the effects of remdesivir and hydroxychloroquine on hospitalized COVID-19 patients (file image)
None of the drugs reduced the degree of respiratory failure or reduced inflammatory markers in COVID-19 patients
Known as NOR-Solidarity, the study is affiliated with the World Health Organization (WHO) Solidarity trial.
The trial sees researchers from several different countries comparing the effects of different drugs on COVID-19.
The trial includes remdesivir, originally designed as a drug to fight Ebola, and an antimalarial drug called hydroxychloroquine.
Remdesivir is currently the only drug fully approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat COVID-19.
Meanwhile, hydroxychloroquine – used to treat malaria, lupus and arthritis – was introduced by former President Donald Trump, who took a two-week regimen of the drug as a prophylactic.
“It would be a gift from heaven, it would be a gift from God if it works,” he said in March 2020. “We are going to pray to God to make it work.”
He then repeated the claims on Twitter.
A French study found that hydroxychloroquine could help treat coronavirus patients only for the publisher to say it “was not meeting its standards” a few weeks later.
In a statement posted online, the International Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (ISAC) addressed several new concerns about the research.
Officials said they found the researchers excluded data on patients who did not respond well to treatment and did not clarify what they meant when they said the patients were “virologically cured.” “.
For the Norwegian study, published in Annals of Internal Medicine, the team examined 181 COVID-19 patients hospitalized at 23 hospitals in Norway between March 28, 2020 and October 4, 2020.
Forty-two patients were randomized to receive remdesivir, 52 patients to receive hydroxychloroquine, and 87 patients to receive standard care.
Although the WHO trial tested the effects of the drugs on mortality, it did not examine any of their antiviral effects.
The new study looked at the effects of the drugs on the degree of respiratory failure, degree, and inflammation, and whether or not it could clear the virus in the oropharynx, which is the middle part of the throat.
The results showed that in all three treatment groups there were similar decreases in viral loads during the first week of treatment.
However, none of the drugs affected the degree of respiratory failure or inflammatory markers in the blood samples.
These were consistent regardless of the patient’s age, duration of symptoms, and whether or not he or she developed antibodies.
The researchers noted in the study that the overall mortality in the NOR-Solidarity trial was lower than that in the WHO-Solidarity trial.
However, there could be many factors behind this, including strict closures in Norway as well as lower rates of pre-existing conditions in patients.
“In conclusion, the overall lack of effect of remdesivir and HCQ on the clinical course of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 was accompanied by a weak effect on the viral clearance of SARS-CoV-2 in the ‘oropharynx, “the authors wrote.
“Our results call into question the antiviral potential of these drugs in hospitalized patients with COVID-19.”
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