CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – UVA Health is working on a treatment that targets an allergic immune response to the coronavirus.
An eczema treatment for asthma is being examined as a way to help those hospitalized with severe COVID-19.
”If you had high levels of this il-13 you were more likely to end up on ventilation,” Doctor William Petri with UVA Health said. “So we knew that this drug called Dupixent is an inhibitor of il-13.”
Forty patients were given the Dupixent allergy drug while hospitalized with severe COVID-19. Twenty of them were given a placebo.
“We did what’s called a randomized, double-blind placebo controlled study, which means that we don’t know who got the drug and who got the placebo while the study is ongoing so there’s no bias,” Dr. Petri said.
The findings suggest patients who took the drug were less likely to die from COVID-19 than people who were on the placebo.
Petri says more testing will need to be done. UVA Health wants to grow the study, using more patients at different hospitals in the future.
