The results of this study could be an important step in the fight against the long-term Covid-19, which is still shrouded in ambiguity and affects, according to the World Health Organization, one in 10 people infected with corona.
A placebo-controlled phase 3 trial tested a drug called metformin, which, made from French lilac, is the world’s most widely used treatment for people with type 2 diabetes.
Metformin is known to be safe, inexpensive, and widely available.
The study, published in The Lancet Infection Diseases, included 1,126 overweight or obese people in the United States. While half of them received metformin, the other half received a placebo in the days following results confirming their infection with Covid-19.
After 10 months, 35 people taking metformin were diagnosed with long-term COVID-19, compared to 58 people in the placebo group, representing a 40% reduction in the risk of developing long-term COVID-19.
The experiment was conducted between December 2020 and January 2022, meaning it included the “Omicron” mutant which caused fewer long-term Covid-19 cases compared to previous mutants, the study confirmed.
The team that carried out the study previously found that metformin reduced the risk of transferring people with Covid to hospital emergency rooms by more than 40%, hospitalization and death.
Speaking to Agence France-Presse, Caroline Bramante, a researcher at the University of Minnesota and lead author of the new study, said: “Our results show that metformin reduces the amount of SARS-CoV-2 virus” in patients.
Frances Williams, professor of epidemiology at Kings College London, confirmed that 564 people had to take the drug “to avoid registering 23 long-term Covid cases”, meaning that “out of 24 people who took metformin, one person avoided long-term Covid. “.
The researchers stressed that the drug has not been tested on people with long-term Covid, so it cannot be used as a treatment for these conditions, only for prevention.
The study also found that the antiparasitic drug ivermectin, which has been misinformed during the pandemic, and the antidepressant fluvoxamine did not prevent long-term Covid infection.
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