NSAIDs are still ok!
“As pandemic coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) continues to accelerate, the French Health Minister, Olivier Véran, has confused matters by claiming on Twitter that anti-inflammatory drugs like ibuprofen or cortisone could aggravate the infection. However, scientific evidence does not indicate that nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) consumption puts patients who otherwise might have mild or asymptomatic infection by severe acute respiratory syndrome … at risk of more severe disease. People taking NSAIDs for other reasons should not stop doing so for fear of increasing their COVID-19 risk.”
As we continue to navigate the evolving COVID-19 situation, I am hearing patients tell me that they are afraid to take NSAIDs because they make you more likely to get the virus. This is simply not true. If you get the virus, you get it from contact with the virus, not from a medicine that has been in your cabinet for weeks or months.
Regarding whether NSAIDs make your symptoms worse if you do get the virus, there is no actual evidence that this is true, and the nuance of where this idea came from is explained very well by Garret FitzGerald’s article in the March 27 edition of Science Magazine.
If you do not need to take NSAIDs, don’t take NSAIDs. If you have a good reason to take NSAIDs and they were prescribed to you for a problem that you are being treated for, feel free to check with the prescriber to make sure they still want you to take it, but don’t just stop taking them because someone somewhere said something that has no evidence and no relevance to your situation. If you have a fever or any new symptoms, go get tested. There are zero scenarios where the news should be driving whether you do or do not take NSAIDs.
