generic antidepressant and a gout medicine that garnered some popularity as COVID-19 treatments shouldn’t be used for mild infection because there’s no evidence they help, according to a panel of experts advising the World Health Organization.
Experts said that fluvoxamine or colchicine could cause injury. The panel didn’t give advice for severe illness, saying there was a lack of data.
The two medicines “are commonly used, inexpensive drugs that have received considerable interest as potential COVID-19 treatments during the pandemic,” the WHO said.
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Fluvoxamine has been used to treat depression and obsessive compulsive disorder for nearly 30 years. In a study that was published in The, the medicine slightly reduced the chance of COVID hospitalization. Lancet Global HealthLast October, journal.
The WHO’s decision reflects uncertainty about how the two drugs would work against COVID-19 in the body, and evidence of little or no effect on survival and other measures such as risk of hospital admission and need for mechanical ventilation, according to the agency.
According to experts, they had considered data from three randomised controlled trials that involved over 2,000 patients with fluvoxamine and seven similar tests that included 16,484 patients with colchicine.
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