University of Utah researchers studying possible treatment with COVID-19 – an old antidepressant

Although people are being vaccinated, a researcher says that effective treatment can save lives in the meantime or help deal with variants resistant to the vaccine.

A decades-old antidepressant drug can prevent the coronavirus from causing serious illnesses – 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 Thursday, “there is a lot of research that suggests that it acts as a very strong anti-inflammatory.”

This is important because severe cases of COVID-19 are likely linked to the inflammation caused by uncontrolled immune responses that the virus triggers, said Spivak.

Last year, the researchers carried out tests with drugs with anti-inflammatory effects, from ibuprofen to the hydroxychloroquine antimalarial.

“We have a lot of anti-inflammatories on the shelves, from everything from Motrin and Tylenol to … drugs we use for specific cancers,” said Spivak. “There has been a very rapid series of tests that look at different anti-inflammatory drugs to treat severe COVID.”

So far, only one of these drugs, a steroid called dexamethasone, “really worked” and has been recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for the treatment of coronavirus.

But researchers at Washington University in St. Louis completed their first fluvoxamine tests in the fall and found that none of the patients who took it needed hospital care – compared with 8% of the coronavirus patients who took the placebo, said Spivak.

The drug has the same cellular mechanism as hydroxychloroquine, which then President Donald Trump pointed out at the beginning of the pandemic as a “miracle” cure – but later proved to be ineffective and possibly dangerous in treating the coronavirus.

This cellular mechanism is about 20 times more powerful in fluvoxamine than in hydroxychloroquine, said Spivak.

The United States is now working with the University of Washington to enroll Utah coronavirus patients in a follow-up study. The researchers are looking for people who recently tested positive for COVID-19 and developed symptoms within six days, who are at risk of serious illness and who have not received a coronavirus vaccine.

Spivak acknowledged that, with the increase in vaccinations and the decline in cases, it may seem a little late for effective treatment for the coronavirus. But with the virus still spreading and mutating, he said, it is important to be ready for a potential vaccine-resistant variant.

“People are still receiving COVID and will continue to do so until we vaccinate enough people,” he said.