A cheap, widely available diabetes drug reduces by 40% the risk of long-term COVID-19 infections, a study published Friday showed.

The results of this study may constitute a milestone in the long-term fight against COVID-19, which according to the World Health Organization still surrounds mystery, affecting one in 10 people infected with Corona.

A trial of a drug called metformine, the most widely used treatment in the world for people with type II diabetes, was tested.

Metformin is known to be safe, inexpensive and widely available.

The study, published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, involved 1126,19 overweight or obese people in the United States. While half received metformin, the other half were given a placebo in the days following COVID-<> results.

After 10 months, 35 people who took metformin were diagnosed with long-term COVID, compared to 58 people in the placebo group, representing a 40% reduction in the risk of facing a long-term COVID-19 infection.

The trial was conducted between December 2020 and January 2022, meaning it included the Omicron variant, which caused fewer long-term Covid infections than previous variants, the study confirmed.

The team that conducted the study had previously found that metformin reduced the risk of COVID hospitalization, hospitalization, and death by more than 40%.

Reducing the amount of SARS-CoV-2 virus

Caroline Bramante, a researcher at the University of Minnesota and lead author of the new study, told AFP that the results "show that metformin reduces the amount of SARS-CoV-2" in patients.

Francis Williams, professor of epidemiology at King's College London, confirmed that 564 people had to take the drug "to avoid 23 cases of long-term Covid", meaning that "out of every 24 people who took metformin, one person avoided facing long-term Covid".

The researchers noted that the drug has not been tested on people with long-term Covid, and can therefore not be used as a treatment for these conditions but only for prevention.

THE STUDY ALSO FOUND THAT THE ANTIPARASITIC DRUG IVERMECTIN, WHICH WAS MISINFORMED DURING THE PANDEMIC, AND FLUVOXAMINE, AN ANTIDEPRESSANT, DID NOT PREVENT LONG-TERM COVID.