New research shows that non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs – NSAIDs reduced both antibody and inflammatory responses to COVID-19 infection in mice. The study appears this week in the Journal of Virology, a publication of the American Society for Microbiology.

The research is important because “NSAIDs are arguably the most commonly used anti-inflammatory medications,” said principal investigator Craig B. Wilen, Assistant Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Immunology, Yale University School of Medicine.

In addition to taking NSAIDs for chronic conditions such as arthritis, people take them “for shorter periods of time during infections, and [during] acute inflammation as experienced with COVID-19, and for side effects from vaccination, such as soreness, fever, and malaise,” said Dr. Wilen. “Our work suggests that the NSAID meloxicam dampens the immune response to COVID-19 infection.” The research also suggests that the consequences of NSAID use during natural infection and vaccination should be evaluated in humans, said Dr. Wilen. “This data likely exists, particularly in the clinical trials for the vaccines, so it should be mined to see if it produces antibody responses in people.”

Release date: 22 January 2021
Source: American Society for Microbiology

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