An experimental COVID-19 antiviral drug seems to be effective at preventing hospitalizations, but isn’t cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, according to a study published online Wednesday.
The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that the drug, interferon lambda, prevented 51 percent of hospitalizations among individuals who received COVID-19 vaccines.
Study authors wrote that the trial was one of the first to test the drug in a largely vaccinated group, or 84 percent of participants. It had the same effect on people who were not vaccinated, they said.
A total of 933 people got a shot of interferon lambda in Canada and Brazil, and they were compared with 1,018 individuals who received a placebo. About 2.7 percent of those who got the interferon shot had to be hospitalized, compared with 5.6 percent who got the placebo, the paper found, noting it’s a difference of 51 percent….