Israel seems to be one step ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to combating new waves of Covid. The country will soon begin its fourth vaccination campaign. A first pilot program with 200 volunteers is underway. The fourth injection should be possible no earlier than four months after the first booster.
It remains to be seen whether the strategy will work. Should the country be able to end the fifth wave just as successfully as the fourth with another vaccination and also the vaccination of children, then the rest of the world will increasingly turn to Tel Aviv – to put Omikron and probably other variants in their place after Delta to assign.
Israel proceeds with military precision and logistics, always leading with scientific evidence. The proposal by a renowned Israeli scientist to reduce Covid deaths with an ancient Greek drug sounds all the more unusual. “The first results are promising, to say the least,” says Professor Ami Schlattner.
Ancient medicine survives to modern times
Colchicine was first found in an ancient Egyptian papyrus from 1550 BC. Mentioned. The ancient Greek medicine is obtained from the autumn crocus, which can easily be confused with the saffron plant. The drug could appear to improve the treatment of people with severe Covid-19 and cut the death rate by almost half. This is the result of a study by physician Schattner, which was published in October in the European Journal of Internal Medicine. “Colchicine – new horizons for an old drug” is the title. First results would indicate a promising potential for effectiveness with Covid-19.
The drug colchicine goes back to ancient Greece and Egypt, where it was known for its special healing properties. It is apparently one of the few drugs that has survived into modern times. The seeds and tubers of the autumn crocus were already used as a medicine in ancient times: their poison colchicine was used against gout as early as 2000 years ago in the Byzantine Empire. More recently, colchicine has also been used to treat and prevent inflammation caused by gout, which can lead to painful arthritis and Familial Mediterranean Fever (FMF), an inherited disease common among Jewish people of North African descent.
Recently, the drug has also been used in the treatment of swelling around the heart and after heart surgery to prevent so-called atrial fibrillation. Beware of overdosing: In addition to severe side effects, a dose of around 20 milligrams of colchicine, which corresponds to about five grams of colchicine seeds, can lead to death from respiratory paralysis and circulatory failure. The autumn crocus is therefore also known as the poison crocus. According to Schattner, however, only minimal doses of less than a milligram are required against severe Covid courses.
Allegedly 50 percent fewer deaths
Schattner examined and analyzed patients who had been treated with this old drug in controlled studies over the past 20 years. He found that, among its uses and potential uses, colchicine also appears to be effective in treating Covid-19.
According to Schattner, four controlled studies with around 6000 coronavirus patients have so far been published on the effects of colchicine. All showed a “significant improvement in the severe coronavirus indices and, above all, a decrease in mortality of around 50 percent compared to those who were not treated with colchicine,” Schattner is quoted by the Jerusalem Post.
Hype or hope?
The drug is apparently cheap, well tolerated and a small daily dose of half a milligram is sufficient, according to Schattner. Colchicine is therefore also being tested in double-blind placebo studies in the treatment of corona cases in Canada, Greece, South Africa, Spain and Brazil. Double blind means that neither the patient nor the doctor knows who is receiving which therapy, which increases the likelihood of accuracy. Schattner: “The results were impressive.”
According to Schattner, the drug is inexpensive for both patients and the healthcare system. Although more studies were needed, this would not prevent him from using colchicine in patients with severe disease to increase their chances of survival. In his opinion, there is no reason why the drug cannot be used now. Schattner: “If we use it on corona patients, we have nothing to lose and a lot to gain.”
In a response to the Schattner study, scientists write that it is unclear whether colchicine is “hype or hope”. The role of obesity and / or diabetes should be examined more closely. The proportion of such high-risk patients in the existing studies was too low to determine the benefit of colchicine against mortality. Obese and diabetic patients are known to make up a large proportion of serious Covid cases. “The moderate quality of the evidence suggests that adding colchicine to standard therapy for patients with Covid-19 is of no benefit,” the authors write in their own research paper. (kes)
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