A commonly used arthritis drug is to be trialled with care home residents who have COVID-19, after it was observed that those taking it for their joint pains were less likely to end up in hospital with the virus, reports The Guardian.
Older people in care homes, who often have some degree of dementia, tend not to do well in hospital, where they become more confused and may pick up infections. The trial will break new ground by giving the drug to people at care homes, where they can be supervised and monitored afterwards by doctors and nurses.
The drug, adalimumab, has been in use for 20 years and there are cheap versions available all over the world. It is an anti-tumour necrosis factor (anti-TNF) drug, which is used to reduce inflammation in arthritis and bowel disease. In the severe stages of COVID-19, patients can suffer from a “cytokine storm” – an overreaction of the body’s immune system, causing an inflammatory response.
“The motivation here was that residents of care homes were particularly badly hit in the first wave of the pandemic,” said Duncan Richards, professor of clinical therapeutics at the University of Oxford, which is running the trial.
[link url="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/30/arthritis-drug-to-be-trialled-as-covid-treatment-in-uk-care-homes"]Full report in The Guardian[/link]