Fluxoaxamine Slashes COVID-19 Hospitalizations, Study Finds

A 10-day course of the inexpensive antidepressant fluvoaxamine cut the risk of COVID-19-related hospitalization by 32 percent in infected patients with comorbidities, a research team in Brazil has found.

And patients who took the drug as prescribed were 66 percent less likely to be hospitalized for the infection than patients who took a placebo, reported Gilmar Reis of the Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais and colleagues in the journal Lancet Global Health.

The drug also more than halved mortality, from 2 percent in the placebo group to less than 1 percent in the treatment group.