BENGALURU: During the height of the second Covid-19 wave, doctors used a combination of remdesivir and baricitinib to treat patients and a study on its effect showed a decrease in oxygen requirement, reduced mortality rate and reduction in the inflammatory markers. The study was conducted on 31 Covid patients at Manipal Hospital, Old Airport Road. Two chief investigators, Dr Anoop Amarnath, head, Department of General Medicine, and Dr Ananya Das, Consultant, Department of Geriatrics and two co-investigators — Dr Venkata Sai Shashank Mutya and Dr Irfan Ibrahim, both from Department of General Medicine, — were involved in the study.
The article, titled “The effect of baricitinib usage on the clinical and biochemical profile of Covid-19, a retrospective observational study” is in pre-print. Among the 31 patients, 50 per cent were diabetic and 75 per cent had co-morbidities. The patients were given 4mg of baricitinib orally once a day for 14 days and remdesivir for five days. It was observed that the mean oxygen requirement in all the age groups was 8.16 litres on day one, but it significantly fell to 1.77 litre by day seven.
A comparison was also done on patients with co-morbidities who required oxygen and others without co-morbidities. This showed a similar effect in reduction of oxygen requirement. Dr Amarnath said, “Similarly, on seeing the inflammatory markers, the mean CRP value on day one in all age groups was 83.9, which reduced to 32.3 by day seven.”
Even in terms of mortality, there was a reduction in the rate as over 87 per cent recovered successfully. Out of 31 patients, three died as they dealt with secondary sepsis. “An ACTT-2 trial was done earlier by other set of health professionals in a different country, wherein over 1,000- plus patients were studied on the combination of baricitinib and remdesivir, which proved its efficacy with mortality benefit,” he said.