Interferon beta-1a as a Candidate for COVID-19 Treatment;An Open Label Single-Arm Clinical Trial

Introduction: Since December 2019, an outbreak of Covid-19 has caused growing concern in multiple countries Researchers around the world are working to find a treatment or a vaccine for Covid-19 and different treatment approaches have been tested in this regard Objective: This study was designed and conducted to assess the possible efficacy of Interferon beta-1a as a safe and efficient candidate for Covid-19 treatment Methods: This is an investigator-initiated, open-label, single-arm clinical trial Twenty patients with suspected Covid-19, who were admitted to Sina hospital in Tehran, Iran, with moderate to severe symptoms, from 6 to 10 March, 2020, were enrolled Patients were treated with antiviral and hydroxychloroquine combination therapy, along with subcutaneous Interferon beta-1a for 5 consecutive days Baseline characteristics and findings during the course of admission and 5 days after discharge were recorded for all the patients Results: In total, 20 patients with suspected Covid-19 were included in this study, 12 (60%) of which were male The median (Interquartile (IQ) range) of patients' age was 55 5 (43-63 5) The most common symptom of the patients at onset of disease was fever The median (IQ range) of duration of hospital stay was 5 0 (3-6) days Only 2 cases were admitted to ICU At the time of follow-up, 15 (94%) patients reported that they generally felt good and had oral tolerance, 1 patient had suffered from dyspnea, 5 patients had suffered from cough, none of them had experienced fever and no case of re-admission or death was reported after discharge Conclusions: Results of the current study are in favor of using Interferon beta-la in addition to recommended antiviral treatment in Covid-19 patients