Study: Asthma Drug Cuts Hospitalization Risk for COVID-19

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• Researchers at the University of Oxford said that a drug commonly used to treat asthma patients may reduce the need for hospitalizations as well as recovery time for COVID-19 patients.
• The 28-day study was conducted on 148 patients, with fifty percent of them took 800 micrograms of the inhaled budesonide.
• The Oxford study suggests that the risk of emergency care or hospitalization was reduced by 90 percent within the study period.

A drug commonly used to treat asthma patients may reduce the need for hospitalization for COVID-19, according to a study conducted by researchers at the University of Oxford.

The 28-day study involved 148 patients, half of them took 800 micrograms of the inhaled budesonide, sold as AstraZeneca’s Pulmicort, twice per day.

The results suggested that inhaled budesonide cut the risk of urgent care or hospitalization by 90 percent within the study period. The researchers also discovered that the drug had a “quicker resolution of fever, symptoms, and fewer persistent symptoms” after 28 days.

The researchers conducted the study upon noticing that patients with chronic respiratory disease were under-represented among people who were admitted to the hospital with COVID-19 early in the pandemic. They are also aware that asthmatic patients have often prescribed inhaled steroids.

Though the findings have not been peer-reviewed, they were published on the pre-print server medRxiv.

“The vaccine programs are really exciting, but we know that these will take some time to reach everyone across the world,” Professor Mona Bafadhel, who led the study, said in a statement. “I am heartened that a relatively safe, widely available and well studied medicine such as an inhaled steroid could have an impact on the pressures we are experiencing during the pandemic.”

Oxford University co-created the COVID-19 vaccine AZD1222 with AstraZeneca. The drugmaker partnered with the NIHR Biomedical Research Center to fund the trial.

Source: The Hill