long-used drug for alcoholism could fight severe COVID-19 | Health Info

By Robert Preidt, Health Day reporter

TUESDAY, November 23, 2021 (HealthDay News) – A widely available drug used to treat alcoholism has potential as a COVID-19 treatment, researchers say.

Investigators found that people taking disulfiram (Antabuse) for alcoholism had a lower risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection and were less likely to die from COVID-19 if infected than those who did not. were not taking the medicine.

The study was observational, so it does not establish a causal link between disulfiram and infection and COVID outcomes. However, the results are encouraging enough to warrant further study and clinical testing, according to researchers at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital.

“It is an excellent candidate for a reused drug. It could easily be made available worldwide if we can prove that it has a positive effect on patients with COVID-19,” said Chris Sander, professor. of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School.

For the study, researchers analyzed data from more than 944,000 U.S. veterans who had at least one SARS-CoV-2 test between February 2020 and February 2021, including more than 2,200 who were prescribed disulfiram for alcoholism.

The study found that those who took disulfiram had a 34% lower rate of SARS-CoV-2 infection than those who did not take the drug. None of the infected veterans who took disulfiram died, compared to 3% of the infected veterans who did not take the drug.

The results were recently published online in the journal PLOS ONE.

“There is evidence that disulfiram not only reduces the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection, but it may actually reduce the number of deaths,” Sander said in a Harvard press release.

It’s unclear how the drug can fight SARS-CoV-2, but researchers have suggested that it may interfere with an enzyme the virus needs to replicate. It’s also possible that disulfiram may reduce the risk of severe COVID-19 by inhibiting a protein involved in hyperinflammation.

A small, randomized, phase 2 clinical trial of disulfiram in patients with moderate COVID-19 is nearing completion, and another is underway. Sander and his colleagues hope their study will lead to large international Phase 3 trials of the drug.

If disulfiram proves effective, it could add to the growing number of options to fight COVID-19, the researchers said.

They noted that disulfiram has been prescribed for over 60 years as a treatment for alcoholism and is safe, inexpensive, familiar to doctors, and widely used in many countries.

SOURCE: Harvard Medical School, press release, November 17, 2021

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