ACTIV-6 is a nationwide, at-home clinical study in which the MU School of Medicine is testing how repurposed medications can be used to treat mild-to-moderate COVID-19 symptoms.Fluticasone, fluvoxamine, and ivermectin are the medications used in the study, and they have all previously been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration to treat other conditions.”These are medications that have either shown potential promise or have been investigated as potential treatments,” said Christopher Sampson, an emergency medicine physician at MU Health Care.Fluticasone is an inhaled steroid that is commonly used to treat asthma and chronic pulmonary disease.
Fluvoxamine is a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), which is a type of antidepressant that is commonly prescribed for depression. Though depression symptoms are not commonly associated with COVID-19, the medication appears to be effective in combating the virus.”Sometimes medications work through different channels,” Sampson explained. “It has shown some promise in the way your body fights the infection against COVID, so it’s now being studied on a larger scale.”Ivermectin, a deworming drug prescribed to humans and animals, was at its peak earlier this year after it was promoted to millions of vaccine-resistant people by conservative lawmakers, talk show hosts, and social media. The FDA worked to disprove online claims that animal-strength versions of COVID-19 could be used to combat it. Poisonings and hospitalizations were caused by high doses of the drug.
Sampson stated that because ivermectin has received this attention, ACTIV-6 considers it a medication to investigate. Outside of the study, he advised people to avoid ivermectin.”A lot of the early ivermectin studies were not well done; they were not very methodologically sound,” Sampson said. “When you look into them in depth, the results are really bad because of the way the study was conducted.”The researchers behind ACTIV-6 hope to find out how ivermectin affects COVID-19 symptoms.”The ACTIV-6 trial’s goal is to look into repurposed medications and see if there is a positive effect in treating the illness,” Sampson explained.
“What makes this study important is that it is conducting well-designed research, looking at these medications that are in the news, and actually seeing if there is good, reliable data that comes out that shows a positive effect.” Participants must be at least 30 years old, have tested positive for COVID-19 in the last 10 days, and have had at least two COVID-19 symptoms for seven days or less. Fatigue, fever, cough, difficulty breathing, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, body aches, chills, headache, sore throat, nasal symptoms, and a new loss of taste or smell are all symptoms of COVID-19.ACTIV-6 expects to enrol 15,000 people across the country. For more information or to enrol in the study, visit activ6study.org or call 833-385-1880.
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