A widely available and inexpensive drug, Famotidine (Pepcid AC) that is used to ease the symptoms of indigestion may prove a worthy contender for treating coronavirus in those whose disease doesn’t require admission to hospital, as per a finding, published online in the journal Gut.
The effects were felt within 24 to 48 hours of taking famotidine, and a rigorous clinical trial is now warranted to see if the drug could be an effective treatment for Covid-19, the researchers said.
It belongs to a class of drugs known as histamine-2 receptor antagonists, which reduce the amount of stomach acid produced. Famotidine can be taken in doses of 20-160 mg, up to four times a day, for the treatment of acid reflux and heartburn.
The researchers report on ten people (six men; four women) who developed Covid-19 infection, all of whom happened to have been taking famotidine during their illness.
The severity of five cardinal symptoms — cough; shortness of breath; fatigue; headache and loss of taste/smell as well as general unwellness — was measured using a version of a 4-point scale normally applied to assess the severity of cancer symptoms (ECOG PS).
Seven of the patients tested positive for Covid-19, using a swab test; two had antibodies to the infection; and one patient wasn’t tested but was diagnosed with the infection by a doctor.
Their ages ranged from 23 to 71 and known risk factors for Covid-19 severity, including high blood pressure and obesity.
All started taking famotidine when they were feeling very poorly with Covid-19, the symptoms of which had been going on from 2 up to 26 days at that point.
Improvement was evident across all symptom categories assessed, but respiratory symptoms, such as cough and shortness of breath, improved more rapidly than systemic symptoms, such as fatigue.
“Our case series suggests, but does not establish, a benefit from famotidine treatment in outpatients with Covid-19,” they caution. And it’s not clear how famotidine might work: if it might incapacitate the virus in some way or alter a person’s immune response to it.