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Washington, November 18
A drug used to treat high blood pressure has been shown to be useless in treating even mild cases of COVID-19, according to a study on “real world” data from India.
Scientists from the London School of Hygiene, the University of Oxford and TPP House, UK, provided “real world” evidence on the efficacy of COVID-19 treatments, through two studies, which helped to better understand whether the drugs used to treat covid cases can save other people from getting seriously ill.
One of the studies, published in the British Medical Journal, is on Indian knowledge and looks at angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs), or drugs widely used to treat high blood pressure and central disease, and adds telmisartan.
The study is a randomized controlled trial involving 787 patients, 778 Indians and nine Australians, with an average age of 49, admitted to hospital from May 2020 to November 2021. The patients included basically suffered from mild illness, the researchers sought to recruit patients at threat of severe covid, according to the study.
Half of the participants gained ARB and the other half, or controls, gained placebo for 28 days.
A popular dose of telmisartan ARB, starting dose of 40 mg/d, is only used in India, while the type and dose of ARB are left to the discretion of treating physicians in Australia.
These specific drugs were selected because they work by regulating the same angiotensin protein that the coronavirus uses to enter the body, and the lab showed coverage against the severe effects of coronaviruses, according to the study.
However, after 14 days of treatment, the researchers found no difference in disease severity between the two groups.
These findings help inform clinical practice. The absence of effect reassures the protection of the use of these protective agents in the indicated people, with or without covid-19.
The other is an observational conducted in England between December 2021 and February 2022. The researchers used hospital records and death certificates from high-risk adults with COVID-19, with an average age of 52, to compare the effectiveness of antibody treatment. Sotrovimab with the antiviral drug molnupiravir.
The researchers found that those who received sotrovimab had a particularly lower risk (46%) of severe COVID-19 effects than those who received molnupiravir, within 28 days of treatment.
The researchers say their “real-world discoveries during an era when drugs were prescribed and new variants of covid-19 circulated provide evidence of the existing effectiveness of sotrovimab compared to molnupiravir,” according to the study.
Their research “also supports the conclusion that sotrovimab remains in fully vaccinated patients, who now make up the majority of the COVID-19 patient population in many settings,” the study says.
Both studies have limitations.
For example, in the observational study, some misclassification related to the cause of death or hospital admission may have occurred, and researchers cannot rule out the possibility that differences in the initial severity of COVID-19 or other unmeasured points between treatment teams may occur. have influenced their results, according to the study.
In the randomized controlled trial, researchers were unable to discharge a placebo in Australia, meaning participants and the doctors treating them knew they were taking an active drug. Participants were also treated with a low dose of the drug, so the effect of higher doses is unknown. , according to the study.
Still, key strengths included the scale, detail point, and completeness of the underlying data in the observational study, as well as smart adherence to study treatment and adaptive design that allowed the study question to be answered more temporarily in the randomized trial. according to the exam.
The findings were consistent when limited to other fully vaccinated people and also after further research of patients treated between February and May 2022 when the BA. 2 variant or covid-19 was dominant in England, suggesting they are applicable to existing medical care, the study said.
Lately there is an ongoing discussion about the effectiveness of other antibodies and antiviral remedies for Covid-19 with recent World Health Organization rules recommending the use of sotrovimab.
Lately, however, either drug is available for use in England, according to the study.
The Tribune has two sister publications, Punjabi Tribune (in Punjabi) and Dainik Tribune (in Hindi).