Triple Drug Cocktail Antiviral Therapy Alleviates COVID-19 Symptoms and Shortens Hospital Stay, Finds New Study

A new study has found that patients with mild to moderate COVID-19 who received a triple-drug treatment improved more quickly than those who received a two-drug combination.

The cocktail included three antiviral drugs: lopinavir-ritonavir (sold under the brand name Kaletra), taken orally; ribavirin, an antiviral drug for the treatment of hepatitis C, taken orally; and interferon beta-1b, an injectable drug that is used to treat multiple sclerosis and regulates inflammation and suppresses viral growth. The participants in the comparison group who were treated with a two-drug combination received only lopinavir and ritonavir.


According to the new study published in The Lancet, researchers in Hong Kong followed 127 adults with COVID-19, including 86 patients who received the three-drug cocktail and 41 in the comparison group. The researchers found that patients who were given the cocktail of three antiviral drugs tested negative for the coronavirus within an average of seven days, as compared to an average of 12 days for those treated with the two-drug combination of lopinavir and ritonavir. The study also found that the triple-drug combination appeared to make the patients recover faster and cut the duration of their COVID-19 symptoms from eight days to four days.

Additionally, the triple-drug treatment appeared to be safe and both the groups experienced similar side effects, such as fever, nausea and diarrhea. The researchers now plan to conduct a larger trial to examine the effectiveness of the triple-drug treatment in critically ill COVID-19 patients.