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We whitethorn person a caller mode of protecting against COVID-19 that checks astir each the boxes: It's effective, it's affordable, it's casual to apply, it's already approved arsenic harmless for nationalist use, it's disposable without prescription… and it's called azelastine.
This nasal spray has been disposable implicit the antagonistic for decades now, nether a assortment of marque names, successful over 70 countries. It's utilized to dainty respective allergies, including hay fever, and a caller proceedings into its effectiveness astatine preventing COVID-19 was launched aft promising results in laboratory tests and radical with a SARS-CoV-2 infection.
The eight-week proceedings was led by a squad from Saarland University successful Germany. The researchers divided 450 participants into 2 groups: 1 radical utilized an azelastine nasal spray 3 times a day, portion the different radical followed the aforesaid regular with a placebo spray.
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"During the reflection period, 2.2 percent of the participants successful the azelastine radical became infected with SARS-CoV-2," says pneumologist Robert Bals of Saarland University. "In the placebo group, it was 6.7 percent – 3 times arsenic many."
More affirmative information from the trial: the azelastine radical besides showed less symptomatic infections (that's confirmed COVID-19 cases besides accompanied by symptoms specified arsenic a cough), a little fig of respiratory infections successful general, and less cases of rhinovirus (a communal acold virus).
Use of the nasal spray led to less cases of COVID-19. (Lehr et al., JAMA Intern. Med., 2025)That past uncovering was somewhat unexpected, due to the fact that rhinovirus is notoriously hard to forestall and treat. The proposition is that this attraction could beryllium effectual against different respiratory infections, too, though that wasn't the main thrust of the research.
While coronavirus corruption rates person dropped significantly since the archetypal fewer years of the pandemic, the microorganism hasn't gone away. It remains a interest for high-risk groups and travelers, for example, and portion vaccines are wide available, they're not ever effectual for everyone.
"Azelastine nasal spray could supply an further easy accessible prophylactic to complement existing protective measures, particularly for susceptible groups, during periods of precocious corruption rates, oregon earlier traveling," says Bals.
These are promising results, but azelastine can't beryllium marketed arsenic being capable to stop COVID-19 yet, adjacent though it already has support arsenic an anti-allergen. Further trials request to beryllium carried retired crossed larger, much divers populations – specified arsenic the susceptible groups mentioned by the researchers.
This peculiar survey didn't analyse wherefore the cause has this protective effect against COVID-19, but past probe suggests aggregate mechanisms are astatine play. Of course, that it's a nasal spray is simply a bully start; astir SARS-CoV-2 infections take the nasal route into the body.
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Existing grounds besides shows that azelastine is 1 of respective drugs that can halt SARS-CoV-2 from replicating itself, halting the microorganism successful its tracks. However it works, though, the cause is intelligibly effectual astatine preventing COVID-19, and we tin expect to perceive much astir this arsenic a imaginable attraction successful the future.
"Our results item the request for larger, multicenter trials to proceed exploring the usage of azelastine nasal sprays arsenic an on-demand preventive treatment, and to analyse its imaginable effectiveness against different respiratory pathogens," says Bals.
The probe has been published successful JAMA Internal Medicine.
