Doctors are testing an ibuprofen to used for arthritis as a coronavirus treatment

News24xx.com - Doctors are testing a version of ibuprofen that’s normally used for arthritis as a possible coronavirus treatment for patients who are struggling to breathe. The anti-inflammatory could help keep patients off ventilators by staving off acute respiratory distress syndrome, researchers suspect.

Flarin, as it’s known in the U.K., is formulated to go easy on the stomach, so it’s a slightly different makeup than the over-the-counter product sold in the U.S.

If it works, the drug could be game-changer when it comes to both prognosis and affordability, the researchers said.

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“As a new illness, there are limited treatment options for patients with Covid-19,” said Richard Beale, a professor of intensive care medicine at Britain’s National Health Service trust, in a statement. “The clinical trial will assess whether this unique formulation of an established drug benefits patients.”

The study is being run by Guy’s and St. Thomas’s NHS Foundation Trust, King’s College London and the SEEK Group, a pharmaceutical-research organization.

Reducing the occurrence of respiratory failure could not only keep people off ventilators but also might get them out of the hospital sooner. While it wouldn’t attack the virus specifically, its anti-inflammatory properties could mitigate symptoms enough to promote recovery, the researchers said.

“If successful, the global public health value of this trial result would be immense given the low cost and availability of this medicine,” said Professor Matthew Hotopf, Director of the NIHR Maudsley BRC, in a statement from King’s College London, the lead institution conducting the study.

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Ibuprofen got a bad rap early on in the coronavirus pandemic, when French Health Minister Olivier Veran suggested it might be the worst thing one could take, given that the virus appears to latch onto a key enzyme that ibuprofen amplifies.

But global health officials quickly dispelled that notion.