It's not going to be a game changer, but fluvoxamine may become a game modifier in this pandemic. The antidepressant is cheap, generic, and shows promising early studies at reducing hospitalization from COVID-19 by about 30%, when taken by individuals with early symptoms.
A nice discussion is available at Vox, and Mark cited early studies a few days ago. Here is one study, and you can find others. Go to google, especially google scholar.
Now, look: the only game changer is going to be widespread vaccination throughout the world, and the pharmaceutical companies’ keeping up with the changing virus. And, it's not a game, no matter how prominently game theory and the other battalions, probability and statistics, factor in this war.
But fluvoxamine holds promise. It also has some biologic plausibility—the anti-inflammatory connection (shared by other drugs, that have not panned out). From that Vox article:
It turned out that one of the SSRIs that worked well, fluvoxamine, binds to a receptor in cells that regulates cellular stress response and the production of cytokines, proteins that tell the body something is wrong and cause inflammation.
Let me say one more thing: just because fluvoxamine is an anti-depressant doesn't mean that it can't work against this virus. It drives me kind of nuts to hear criticisms of ivermectin treatment on the basis that it is used as a horse dewormer, sheep dip and anti-scabetic in humans. We don't say, “Oh, aspirin was invented to reduce fevers, so it can't work on headaches; and it can't work to prevent heart attacks or ischemic strokes. Couldn’t possibly work on Kawasaki’s or JRA.” I mean, that's just stupid. It’s fun to denigrate covidiots, but let’s do it based on fact.
One more one more thing: a nationalized electronic medical records system, coupled with a decent artificial intelligence, would come up with all sorts of treatments, cures, associations, etiologies, etc., etc. Right now, it would be very easy for researchers –– and I'm sure—they are hot on this—to mine data from patients on the antidepressant.
Keep your eye on fluvoxamine.
(n.b.: fluvoxamine) and sound-alike fluoxetine are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants used to treat depression and obsessive-compulsive disorders.)
