In a study from Toronto Center for Liver Disease and elsewhere, scientists found a single dose of the antiviral drug peginterferon lambda reduced by half the risk of hospitalization or a visit to the Emergency Department due to COVID-19.
The clinical study was designed to test a new therapy in a real setting—evaluated the use of this drug in more than 1,900 outpatients at high risk of developing complications from COVID-19.
All participants were either aged 50 or older or had a health condition that put them at higher risk for severe COVID-19, such as diabetes, hypertension, obesity, being a transplant recipient, and cancer patient, among other conditions.
The team found patients who received a single-dose subcutaneous injection of peginterferon lambda within seven days of their first COVID-19 symptom had a 50% lower risk of needing to be admitted to the hospital when compared to people who received a placebo.
The study was one of the first to test the treatment in a largely vaccinated population.
The research team found that a similar effect was seen in those who had received the vaccine—84%—as in those who were unvaccinated.
The team also saw the benefits of treatment across multiple COVID-19 variants, including the highly transmissible omicron variant.
This study follows a previous phase 2 trial performed at UHN that showed that peginterferon lambda accelerated clearance of the virus.
The team says this study showed that the antiviral benefits they previously observed translate to clinical benefits.
The results conclusively show that this is an effective therapy to treat COVID-19 to reduce the risk of complications.
Study participants reported few or no side effects, with no big differences seen between the group that received the actual treatment and the group that received matching placebo.
The team says this could be an important addition to the effort against COVID-19, especially for high-risk patients who may not be able to use currently available treatments because of side effects or drug interactions with medications they take.
The effect of the treatment was even more pronounced in people who received the drug within three days of symptom onset, consistent with other antiviral medications for COVID-19.
If you care about COVID, please read studies about how vitamin B may help fight COVID-19, and this face mask can capture and deactivate COVID-19 virus.
For more information about COVID, please see recent studies that new antiviral drug may block COVID-19 transmission, and results showing when you should get the new COVID-19 booster and the flu shot.
The study was conducted by Dr. Jordan Feld et al and published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
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