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Azithromycin, an antibiotic used to treat COVID-19, was no more effective in relieving outpatients of symptoms of COVID-19 than a placebo, according to a study.
Results from researchers affiliated with the University of California at San Francisco published in JAMA Network on July 16 analyzed 263 COVID-19 outpatients, 171 of whom were treated with a single 1.2 g oral dose of the antibiotic, while 92 patients received a placebo. After two weeks, the study found “no significant difference in the proportion of participants who were asymptomatic (azithromycin: 50%; placebo: 50%)”. In addition, on day 21, five participants in the treatment group were hospitalized compared to zero in the placebo group.
“Azithromycin is not a drug that should be used to treat Covid,” Dr Aaron Glatt, who is not involved in the study, told Fox News.
Glatt, chairman of the Mount Sinai South Nassau Department of Medicine and Head of Infectious Diseases, added: “There is no evidence that it offers any benefit in treating Covid and it should not be used unless ‘there is no suitable bacterial indication. “
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Antibiotics like azithromycin are often used to treat bacterial infections like pneumonia and sexually transmitted infections, according to Dr. Anthony J. Santella, professor of health administration and policy and COVID-19 university coordinator at the University of New Haven.
“So exploring its use to prevent symptoms of COVID-19 makes sense using a robust clinical trial design,” he wrote, later adding, “we must remember that this is about ‘a research study and we will never change treatment guidelines without replicating the study and getting an expert panel to independently review the study data. ”
The antibiotic was first introduced in COVID-19 care because of its anti-inflammatory properties believed to help stop progression if given early, wrote lead author Catherine E. Oldenburg, MPH, assistant professor at the UCSF Proctor Foundation, in a statement posted to EurekAlert.org.
“These results do not support the routine use of azithromycin for ambulatory SARS-CoV-2 infection,” Oldenburg wrote.
Another expert called the results “concerning but not entirely unexpected”.
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Dr Ryan Miller, an infectious disease specialist at the Cleveland Clinic, noted that the antibiotic has been shown to reduce the number of readmissions of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and adds that the anti- inflammatory effects known to the treatment help lessen the effects. of COPD.
He warned that the antibiotic has significant and potentially fatal side effects, one of which can lead to an abnormal heart rhythm preventing blood from being pumped throughout the body, while also citing a study comparing azithromycin and l amoxicillin for cardiovascular death, finding an increased risk of 2.49 for people treated with azithromycin.
“For these reasons, my infectious disease physician colleagues and I tend to be overly reluctant when we administer additional therapies without proven benefit. Every drug carries a risk of side effects,” he wrote.
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