Study: blood thinning drug does not improve recovery from severe COVID-19
- 09 December 2022
- 1 min read
A trial has found that a drug used to reduce the risk of blood clots does not help patients recovering from moderate and severe COVID-19.
Prescribing Apixaban, an oral anticoagulant, does not stop coronavirus patients from later dying or being readmitted to hospital over the following year, the HEAL-COVID trial found.
A number of participants receiving Apixban also experienced bleeding, requiring them to discontinue treatment.
More than 1,000 patients hospitalised with COVID-19 took part in the study, included five at hospitals in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire.
The trial will continue to test another drug, Atorvastatin, a widely used lipid lowering drug, or statin that acts on other mechanisms of disease that are thought to be important in COVID-19.
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