Oral Drug Found Effective In Treating Covid-19

A major clinical trial shows that an inflammatory drug called colchicine is effective in treating COVID-19 and reduces the risk of complications from the disease, doctors in Canada said.

The results of the study are a major scientific discovery and make colchicine — a medicine used to treat gout — the world's first oral drug that could be used to treat non-hospitalized patients with COVID-19, the Montreal Heart Institute said in a statement late Friday.

The study results show that colchicine reduced by 21 percent the risk of death or hospitalizations in patients with COVID-19 compared to placebo, the institute said.

The study was carried out in Canada, the US, Europe, and South America among a population of 4,488 patients.

In 4,159 of these patients, in whom the diagnosis of COVID-19 was proven by a naso-pharyngeal PCR test, use of colchicine reduced hospitalizations by 25 percent, the need for mechanical ventilation by 50 percent, and deaths by 44 percent, the study concluded.