Man who set himself on fire outside Trump trial dies of injuries, police say
A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former U.S. President Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said.
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.”
A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former U.S. President Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said.
An Israeli airstrike on a house in Gaza's southernmost city killed at least nine people, six of them children, hospital authorities said Saturday, as Israel pursued its nearly seven-month offensive in the besieged Palestinian territory.
One day after a Montreal police officer fired gunshots at a suspect in a stolen vehicle, senior officers were telling parliamentarians that organized crime groups are recruiting people as young as 15 in the city to steal cars so that they can be shipped overseas.
A rescue operation for an orca calf trapped in a remote tidal lagoon off Vancouver Island has been put on hold after it started eating seal meat thrown in the water for what is believed to be the first time.
Michael Gordon Jackson, a Saskatchewan man accused of abducting his daughter to prevent her from getting a COVID-19 vaccine, has been found guilty for contravention of a custody order.
Soulful gospel artist Mandisa, a Grammy-winning singer who got her start as a contestant on 'American Idol' in 2006, has died, according to a statement on her verified social media. She was 47.
Scottish comedian Samantha Hannah was working on a comedy show about finding a husband when Toby Hunter came into her life. What happened next surprised them both.
In a first-of-its-kind ruling, a B.C. judge has awarded a former couple joint custody of their dog.
Saskatoon police say they will begin searching the city’s landfill for the remains of Mackenzie Lee Trottier, who has been missing for more than three years.
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.
Molly Knight, a grade four student in Nova Scotia, noticed her school library did not have many books on female athletes, so she started her own book drive in hopes of changing that.
Almost 7,000 bars of pure gold were stolen from Pearson International Airport exactly one year ago during an elaborate heist, but so far only a tiny fraction of that stolen loot has been found.
When Les Robertson was walking home from the gym in North Vancouver's Lower Lonsdale neighbourhood three weeks ago, he did a double take. Standing near a burrow it had dug in a vacant lot near East 1st Street and St. Georges Avenue was a yellow-bellied marmot.
A moulting seal who was relocated after drawing daily crowds of onlookers in Greater Victoria has made a surprise return, after what officials described as an 'astonishing' six-day journey.
Just steps from Parliament Hill is a barber shop that for the last 100 years has catered to everyone from prime ministers to tourists.
A high score on a Foo Fighters pinball machine has Edmonton player Dave Formenti on a high.
A compound used to treat sour gas that's been linked to fertility issues in cattle has been found throughout groundwater in the Prairies, according to a new study.