Feb. 11 (UPI) —<\/span> An over-the-counter drug that initially showed some promise in treating COVID-19, and prompted further study, has shown to be less effective than researchers hoped.<\/p>\n According to a study published on Thursday, the drug famotidine — which is the active ingredient in the heartburn medication Pepcid — showed some improvement<\/span> for patients with mild or moderate COVID-19. However, the benefit was only marginally better than was seen in volunteers who were given a placebo.\n<\/p>\n<\/article>\n The study, which enlisted 55 participants, showed that the people who’d received famotidine had an estimated 50% reduction in symptoms at 8.2 days, while those given a placebo saw reductions in 11.4 days.<\/p>\n “We found that famotidine is safe at the higher doses used and see molecular and clinical evidence that it improves the recovery of symptomatic patients of diverse ancestries diagnosed with COVID-19,” Tobias Janowitz, principal investigator of the trial, said in a statement.\n<\/p>\n “We hope that the data we are sharing with this study guide future trials that are necessary to confirm famotidine as a treatment for patients with COVID-19.”<\/p>\n Dr. Carlos del Rio, president-elect of the Infectious Disease Society of America, was less impressed with the study’s results.\n<\/p>\n “I’m totally underwhelmed,” he said, according to CNN, adding that money should not be spent on a larger trial.\n<\/p>\n Researchers at Northwell and Cold Spring Harbor are considering a larger clinical trial with famotidine as a COVID-19 treatment. But some, including del Rio, say it’s not worth spending money on a larger trial — mainly because there are already better options to treat the coronavirus disease, like antiviral tablets from Pfizer and Merck.<\/p>\n William Schaffner, an infectious diseases expert and vaccine adviser to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also discouraged spending money on more study for the same reason.<\/p>\n The trial was supported by statisticians from Stony Brook University and was funded by the Pershing Square Foundation and by a grant from Emergent Ventures.\n<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" COVID-19 testing sites are seen on Tuesday along 42nd Street in New York City. Photo by John Angelillo\/UPI | License Photo Feb. 11 (UPI) — An over-the-counter drug that initially showed some promise in treating COVID-19, and prompted further study, has shown to be less effective than researchers hoped. According to a study published on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":986238,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[261,236,1121,4815,4816,962,508,28],"class_list":["post-986236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-covid19","tag-drug","tag-effect","tag-heartburn","tag-ingredient","tag-shows","tag-small","tag-study"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/986236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=986236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/986236\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=986236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=986236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=986236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n ![\"Study](\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Study-shows-heartburn-drug-ingredient-has-small-effect-against-COVID-19.jpg\" "\\"Study")
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\n<\/div>\nCOVID-19 testing sites are seen on Tuesday along 42nd Street in New York City. Photo by John Angelillo\/UPI | License Photo<\/div>\n\n