WHO discourages using two medications in non-severe Covid Cases

Regardless of the severity of the condition, the UN health organization previously advised against using convalescent plasma, ivermectin, and hydroxychloroquine in patients with Covid-19.

Digital Desk: In patients with mild or moderate Covid-19, the World Health Organization (WHO) advises against the use of the antidepressant fluvoxamine and the gout medication colchicine, noting a lack of evidence that they improve outcomes and findings that they instead present possible risks.

The WHO Guideline Development Group (GDG), a team of international specialists, released the advice on Wednesday, and it was available in The BMJ.

Regardless of the severity of the condition, the UN health organization previously advised against using convalescent plasma, ivermectin, and hydroxychloroquine in patients with Covid-19.

Fluvoxamine and colchicine are widely used, affordable medications that have attracted a lot of interest as potential Covid-19 therapies during the pandemic, largely from persons citing unsupported observations.

"With multiple recent completions and ongoing randomized controlled trials (RCTs), the body of data for Covid-19 therapies is constantly changing. In patients with non-severe Covid-19, this update adds new recommendations for fluvoxamine and colchicine. The former was based on data from three RCTs with 2,196 patients, and the latter on data from seven RCTs with 16,484 patients, according to the article.

The panel came to the conclusion that practically all educated patients would decide against receiving either fluvoxamine or colchicine medication after carefully examining this information.

The panel stated that because children were not included in any of the included research, it is still unclear whether the suggestions presented are applicable to children.

However, they could not think of a reason why kids with Covid-19 would react to treatment with fluvoxamine or colchicine any differently.

WHO issued a statement saying that for patients with severe COVID-19, it highly advises corticosteroids along with IL-6 receptor blockers or baricitinib.

According to experts, guidelines will inevitably be changed when new evidence becomes available.

"The recommendations are revised as new scientific data becomes available. There are no firm advice because that is how medicine operates, according to Dr. Srikant Sharma, senior consultant in the hospital's department of medicine.