Correspondence on Fluvoxamine Treatment of Patients with Symptomatic COVID-19

Dear Editor:

We would like to correspond and share ideas on the publication “Fluvoxamine treatment of patients with symptomatic COVID-19 in a community treatment center: a preliminary result of randomized controlled trial” [1]. According to Seo et al., there were no significant differences in clinical worsening between patients treated with fluvoxamine and those treated with a placebo in this research of adult patients with symptomatic coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) who were admitted to the community treatment center [1]. There are several new proposed alternative treatments against COVID-19, including fluvoxamine. This report is discordant with a recent publication by Lenze et al. [2]. There might be several factors that may result in the difference of observed clinical usefulness of fluvoxamine. The severity of symptomatic COVID-19, concurrent underlying medical conditions, and additional alternative therapies to fluvoxamine might affect the outcome and should be analyzed. In a recent meta-analysis, Guo et al. mentioned the need for the analysis of the possible confounding factors determining the effect of fluvoxamine in clinical settings [3]. However, Guo et al. showed a trend of there being a possible role of fluvoxamine in reducing severe clinical infection [3].