New study: Swedish asthma could help people with the virus

In the study, published recently in LancetAttended by 146 people who had recently had mild symptoms of COVID-19. Half of them were allowed to inhale their asthma medication and were checked against an equally large control group for whom the drug was not prescribed.

According to the study, those who received asthma medications sought less medical care and recovered faster than the control group.

There are no specific conclusions

Magnus Geslin, a professor at the University of Gothenburg and chief physician at Sahlgrenska University Hospital, believes the results should be interpreted with caution.

It’s a fairly small study, and it’s not controlled by placebo, which is of course important because it can affect. He also says that young people are also the ones who participated relatively in the study, so it is difficult to draw generalizable conclusions.

Before the treatment could be used more widely, Magnus Gisslén thinks a larger, placebo-controlled study is needed.

At the same time, he sees benefits, if the treatment turns out to be effective.

It works very well for early administration and is inexpensive and relatively harmless.

It was developed in Sweden

The asthma medication used in the study, Pulmicort, is Developed in Sweden It contains cortisone, which reduces inflammation in the airways.

The background of the study is that asthma patients are underrepresented among critically ill patients in Covid-19, and asthma medications have been cited as a possible cause.

There are many theories as to why the drug might affect Coronavirus infection.

One is that it could be an advantage that inflammation in the airways is reduced, and the other is that the receptors that the virus attaches to cells in the airways can be thought to be reduced by inhaling cortisone, says Magnus Geslin.