Widely used unapproved drug not effective in treating Covid, finds Polish state-backed study

Amantadine, a medication that has been widely taken in Poland to treat COVID-19 despite not being recommended by any health authority, is ineffective in treating the disease, according to the results of a state-funded study unveiled yesterday by the health ministry.

“The results are so clear that there is no point in continuing the research,” said the head of the study, which was commissioned by Poland’s state Medical Research Agency (ABM). “I have asked the president of ABM to stop recruiting patients for the research.”

Sales of amantadine, which is normally used in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis, have boomed during the pandemic, with particularly large rises in regions of Poland where Covid vaccination rates are lowest.

Yet the medicine is not recommended for the treatment of COVID-19 by any medical or scientific body, notes Robert Flisiak, head of Poland’s Society of Epidemiologists and Doctors of Infectious Diseases.

In response to its growing popularity, ABM financed two studies on amantadine’s effectiveness on Covid patients. Yesterday, at a press conference called by the health ministry, Professor Barczyk presented the results of the first.

Among a group of 149 randomly selected patients being treated at a number of different hospitals for moderate to severe cases of COVID-19, the researchers gave 78 a course of amantadine and the rest a placebo, reports Puls Medycyny.

Both sets of patients otherwise received standard treatment and the study was “double-blind”, meaning that neither patients nor researchers knew who was receiving amantadine and who got the placebo.

The results showed that there was “no difference [in outcomes] between those who took the placebo and those who took amantadine”, said Barczyk. The findings are so clear that it would make no sense to continue the research, he added.

Speaking alongside Barczyk, the head of ABM, Radosław Sierpiński, said that he hoped the findings would “unequivocally end the discussion” about the use of amantadine to treat COVID-19.

That is unlikely to happen, however, says Tomasz Karauda, a lung disease doctor. The research “will not convince proponents of conspiracy theories”, who will claim it was “financed by Big Pharma” or ask why it did not examine the use of amantadine before patients are hospitalised, he told Interia.

Among those to have advocated the use of amantadine to treat COVID-19 is a deputy justice minister, Marcin Warchoł, who declared in 2020 that he himself “is an example” that it works. Last year, he wrote to the health minister to complain about the slow pace of research into its effectiveness.

But Karauda warns that false belief in amantadine is putting people’s health and lives at risk – not because the drug itself is harmful, but because many are choosing to take it instead of seeking proper treatment. By the time they do, it may be too late.

At yesterday’s press conference, Poland’s commissioner for patients’ rights, Bartłomiej Chmielowiec, announced that, in response to the findings, he had issued a decision prohibiting the use of amantadine in the treatment of COVID-19 at medical facilities.

In December last year, the health ministry also restricted the availability of amantadine beyond its intended use due to fears that its growing popularity could leave patients who actually do need it, such as those with Parkinson’s, strugglging to get hold of it.

The results of the second study being financed by ABM, which looks at the use of amantadine on outpatient COVID-19 sufferers, are expected to be announced within the next few days.

Main image credit: MZ_GOV_PL/Twitter

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.