Parents of infant who died in wrong-way crash on Ontario's Hwy. 401 were in same vehicle
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
The inexpensive and well-known drug fluvoxamine can save the lives of COVID-19 patients and cut hospital admissions by up to 30 per cent, according to a new study.
The study, co-led by researchers at McMaster University and published Wednesday in The Lancet, treated 741 randomly selected Brazilian COVID-19 patients with fluvoxamine, and another 756 with a placebo. All of the patients were treated from Jan. 15 to Aug. 6 of 2021, and were monitored for 28 days. All of the patients were unvaccinated.
Fluvoxamine is a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressant that is used to treat mental health conditions such as depression and obsessive-compulsive disorders.
Out of the participants who received fluvoxamine, 10.6 per cent (79) required treatment by a doctor for more than six hours or were hospitalized. By comparison, 15.7 per cent (119) of the participants who received placebos were hospitalized or needed physician treatment for more than six hours. When patients took all of their drugs, the noted beneficial effect went up to 65 per cent, the study found.
Dr. Edward Mills, the co-principal investigator of the trial, said the results could be a potential game-changer, particularly in developing countries with low vaccination rates.
“It’s a very large treatment effect, one that hasn’t been observed for any drug yet,” he told CTV National News in a video interview.
“It could be one of our most powerful weapons against the virus and its effectiveness is one of the most important discoveries we have made since the pandemic began,” he said in a separate written statement.
Fluvoxamine has been used since the 1990s and its safety profile is well known, says Mills. It costs about $4 per 10-day course, which is far cheaper than other treatments, he said.
“For fluvoxmine, 10 days’ worth of drugs costs $4. The monoclonal antibodies for treatment at the very same stage of disease cost $2,100,” he told CTV National News.
Mills says having an easily-accessible drug can allow hospitals to avoid expensive and sometimes risky treatments.
The drug was identified early in the pandemic for its anti-inflammatory properties, which could help reduce the severe immune responses patients may have in response to COVID-19. These severe responses, called “Cytokine storms,” can cause potentially lethal organ damage.
Although death was not a primary outcome of the study, further analysis found that of the participants who took at least 80 per cent of their doses, there was one death among the group that received fluvoxamine, compared to 12 deaths among the placebo group.
Mills said the next step is to evaluate whether or not fluvoxamine combined with other interventions, like steroids, can have a larger treatment effect. As well, although fluvoxamine is widely available, it is not on the WHO’s Essential Medicines list. However, fluoxetine, a closely-related antidepressant, is on the WHO list.
He says it’s important to look at if similar antidepressants can also be used to treat COVID-19.
“This is one particular antidepressant, are there other antidepressants within the same family that may be cheaper, have a longer half-life (the amount of time it’s in your system), or are more widely available? Would they demonstrate the same kind of treatment benefit?” he told CTV National News. “We’re going to have to examine this question.”
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
A spike in impaired driving-related collisions has caused Ontario’s provincial police to begin enforcing mandatory alcohol screening (MAS) at all traffic stops in the Greater Toronto Area -- a move one civil rights group says is ‘not acceptable.’
William Nylander scored twice and Joseph Woll made 22 saves as the Toronto Maple Leafs downed the Boston Bruins 2-1 on Thursday to force Game 7 in their first-round series.
Jurors in the hush money trial of Donald Trump heard a recording Thursday of him discussing with his then-lawyer and personal fixer a plan to purchase the silence of a Playboy model who has said she had an affair with the former president.
Staff at a small southern Alberta office supply store were shocked to find someone had broken into the business last week, but they were even more confused when they discovered the culprit was a bear.
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a scuba dive boat captain to four years in custody and three years supervised release for criminal negligence after 34 people died in a fire aboard the vessel.
Fake text message and email campaigns trying to get money and information out of unsuspecting Canadian taxpayers have started circulating, just months after the federal government rebranded the carbon tax rebate the Canada Carbon Rebate.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.
The lawyer for a residential school survivor leading a proposed class-action defamation lawsuit against the Catholic Church over residential schools says the court action is a last resort.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.