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A clinical trial in more than 4,600 people at risk of serious COVID-19 found that an inhalable asthma medication shortened the duration of disease symptoms by about 3 days. The asthma drug budesonide is an inexpensive and widely available inhalable steroid. Christopher Butler and Richard Hobbs at the University of Oxford, UK, and their colleagues tested budesonide in people who had COVID-19 symptoms but were not hospitalized (PRINCIPLE Collaborative Group et al. Preprint at medRxiv https://doi.org/f6hf; 2021). Participants either were over the age of 65 or were more than 50 years old and had conditions that increased their risk of COVID-19 complications. Participants were randomly assigned to either receive the drug or serve in a control group, but none took a placebo. Both participants and investigators knew who had received the drug. Those who took budesonide twice daily for two weeks reported that their COVID-19 symptoms ended three days earlier than those who did not use the steroid. The results have not yet been peer reviewed.
Preprint in medRxiv (April 12, 2021):
