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Published February 1, 2021 •
Updated on February 2, 2021 at 10:08 am
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A commonly prescribed pill approved more than 13 years ago by the Food and Drug Administration for depression and obsessive compulsive disorder is showing initial success in preventing people infected with COVID-19 from developing serious symptoms and being hospitalized.
The drug Fluvoxamine, sold by the brand name Luvox, appears to prevent inflammation in the lungs of people infected with COVID-19, which can be fatal. What we observed was that all the patients who received Fluvoxamine, none of them had a severe COVID infection that affected their lungs or their respiratory status, said Dr. Caline Mattar, an infectious disease researcher at Washington University in St. Louis who helped conduct an initial trial of the drug last fall.