A 40p indigestion pill may help ease Covid-19 symptoms and speed up recovery, a study has claimed.
Famotidine – branded as Pepcid AC – is an over-the-counter drug taken by millions of people to relieve heartburn and acid reflux.
Researchers in the US looked at ten people who started taking the medication each day while they had the coronavirus.
Some reported their cough and shortness of breath had faded after 24 hours. And every patient improved within 48 hours, doctors said.
It’s not currently clear how famotidine might work – experts say it may directly stop the virus functioning or boost the immune system.
All of the patients had mild symptoms, suggesting it could benefit thousands who escape a severe bout of Covid-19 and stop them ending up in hospital.
The researchers have now called for further trials into the indigestion drug, as the race for a cure to halt the pandemic continues.
A 40p indigestion pill sold as Pepcid AC in the UK could help ease Covid-19 symptoms and speed up recovery, a study claims
Some patients reported a significant change in their symptoms of a cough and shortness of breath after 24 hours, and every patient had improved within 48 hours. All were better within 14 days
Pepcid AC is the UK brand name for famotidine, a generic drug which can relieve the symptoms of indigestion.
The medicine belongs to a class of drugs known as histamine-2 receptor antagonists which help get rid of stomach acid.
Famotidine can be taken in doses of 20-160mg, up to four times every day, to treat acid reflux and heartburn.
Scientists at US healthcare provider Northwell Health recruited ten participants of a mixed ethnicity, aged 23 to 71, mostly in the US.
They included six men and four women, who began taking the medicine when they became very unwell with Covid-19.
Their symptoms had been going on for up to 26 days at the point they started using the pills but none had been so unwell they needed hospital care.
The severity of five symptoms – cough, shortness of breath, fatigue, headache and loss of taste/smell as well as general sickness – was measured over the course of the study using a four-point scale.
All 10 patients said symptoms quickly improved within 24-48 hours of starting famotidine and had mostly cleared up after 14 days.
The most frequently used dose was 80mg taken three times a day, with the average treatment period lasting 11 days, but ranging from five to 21 days.
There was evidence all symptoms eased to some extent, but respiratory symptoms, such as cough and shortness of breath, improved more rapidly.
If famotidine is, as the findings suggest, improving symptoms, it’s not clear if it is directly attacking the virus or altering a person’s immune response to it.
In a large number of serious Covid-19 cases, patients go downhill because their immune system over-reacts to the infection.
Famotidine is thought to potentially block the action of the 3-chymotrypsin-like protease (3CLpro), an enzyme which is used by the coronavirus to replicate. Therefore 3CLpro has become a drug target in order to halt the virus replicating.
Seven of the patients didn’t experience any side effects while on famotidine. In the three who did, the symptoms of dizziness, insomnia and a racing heartbeat were a well-known side effect of the drug and were only mild.
One person had temporary forgetfulness which has not been recognised as a side effect of famotidine, according to the study in the journal Gut.
The researchers, led by Dr Tobias Janowitz, admitted their findings may have been affected by ‘the placebo effect’ – a phenomenon in which a sick person feels like they have got better because psychologically, they believe the drug is working.
Some of the patients had pre-existing health conditions such as high blood pressure and obesity which would affect the severity of the disease, the researchers said.
And the Covid-19 symptoms may have just got better by chance because the researchers did not compare the indigestion pill with another drug in a gold standard clinical trial.
But the team, which also included scientists from the Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory in New York, said their findings warrant further investigation.
Huge sums of cash have been funnelled into the race to find a vaccine and a drug that can stop people dying from Covid-19 in hospital.
However, to reduce the burden of the virus entirely, it is important to also look at drugs which halt symptoms in mild cases.
The team cautioned their research only suggested ‘but does not establish a benefit from famotidine treatment in outpatients with Covid-19’.
The researchers wrote: ‘Our findings support the rigorous evaluation of famotidine as a potential therapy and of the use of symptom tracking for non-hospitalised patients with Covid-19.’
‘Clinically, we unreservedly share the opinion that well designed and informative studies of efficacy are required to evaluate candidate medications for COVID-19 as for other diseases.’
A clinical trial testing the effects of famotidine in combination with the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine is already under way at hospitals in New York.