US scientists have identified antidepressants that reduce the risk of death from COVID-19 
– selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) – significantly reduces the risk of death in coronavirus infection. The article of scientists was published in the JAMA Network Open.
Experts from the University of California and Stanford analyzed the anonymized data of electronic medical records of 500 thousand patients in the United States. 83.5 thousand of them had COVID-19 found in the period from January to September 2020. SSRIs were prescribed to 3.4 thousand of this number.
Researchers compared the outcomes of coronavirus infection in those taking such drugs with patients with COVID-19 in the control group, who were matched according to age, gender, nationality and presence concomitant diseases. It turned out that the risk of dying in those taking fluoxetine was 28 percent less than in the control group. Those taking fluoxetine or fluvoxamine, another SSRI, had a 26 percent lower risk. Overall, taking any SSRI has been associated with an eight percent reduction in the risk of death from coronavirus infection.
“Electronic health records allow us to quickly assess existing drugs that could be repurposed to treat COVID-19 and other diseases.” , – notes one of the authors of the work, a researcher at the University of California at San Francisco Tomiko Oskotsky. At the same time, the researchers emphasize, in order to speak with confidence about the benefits of using this group of antidepressants in COVID-19, large-scale randomized clinical trials are needed.