Nikhil Prasad Fact checked by:Thailand Medical News Team Jul 23, 2026 1 hour, 10 minutes ago
Medical News: Millions living with long COVID continue to struggle with overwhelming fatigue that disrupts work, family life, and daily activities. A major new UK clinical trial has now delivered sobering news. While two commonly available medications produced modest short-term improvements, none provided lasting relief once treatment stopped.
Major UK trial finds that two repurposed drugs provide only modest, short-lived relief from long COVID fatigue while lasting
recovery remains elusive
Largest Long COVID Drug Trial Offers Clearer Answers
The research was carried out by the STIMULATE-ICP consortium, led by investigators from the Institute of Health Informatics, University College London (UCL) together with researchers and clinicians from 12 UK National Health Service (NHS) specialist Long COVID clinics and collaborating academic and healthcare institutions across the United Kingdom.
Researchers focused on three repurposed drugs that were believed to target possible causes of long COVID, including inflammation, abnormal immune responses, and tiny blood clots. The medications tested were colchicine, rivaroxaban, and a combination of famotidine with loratadine.
The trial enrolled 778 adults who had developed long COVID after COVID-19 infection but had never been hospitalized during their original illness. Participants were randomly assigned to receive one of the three drug treatments or standard specialist long COVID care without any study medication for 12 weeks.
Severe Fatigue Improved in Nearly Everyone
Participants entered the study with very severe fatigue, averaging a score of 36.8 out of 50 on the Fatigue Assessment Scale, a validated tool used to measure physical and mental exhaustion.
By the end of 12 weeks, fatigue had improved in all four groups, including those who received no study drug. This suggests that specialist care, symptom management, rehabilitation, pacing strategies, and natural recovery all played meaningful roles in reducing symptoms.
However, after adjusting for differences between participants, researchers found that those taking colchicine or the famotidine-loratadine combination experienced a small additional reduction in fatigue compared with usual care alone. Rivaroxaban, an anticoagulant intended to target abnormal clotting, failed to show a statistically significant benefit.
Small Benefits Disappeared After Treatment Ended
This
Medical News report highlights what may be the study's most important finding.
When researchers reassessed patients 12 weeks after the medications had been stopped, the slight advantages seen with colchicine and famatidine-loratadine had completely disappeared. Fatigue scores became almost identical across all groups.
Quality-of-life scores followed a similar pattern. Patients receiving the active drugs initially reported feeling somewhat healthier, but by 24 weeks the control group had largely cau
ght up, leaving no meaningful long-term differences.
The researchers also observed that participants had lived with long COVID for a median of about 775 days, showing that even patients with long-standing symptoms can experience gradual improvement over time, although the tested drugs alone were not enough to provide lasting recovery.
Safety Profile Was Generally Reassuring
The treatments were generally well tolerated. Colchicine most commonly caused digestive side effects, while rivaroxaban produced more minor bleeding events, including heavier menstrual bleeding in some participants. Serious adverse events requiring hospitalization occurred in only eight participants, and investigators determined that none were caused by the study drugs.
What the Findings Mean
The study provides one of the clearest pictures yet of how difficult long COVID remains to treat. Although colchicine and the famotidine-loratadine combination produced statistically measurable improvements, the actual benefit was modest and disappeared after treatment ended. Meanwhile, rivaroxaban offered no meaningful reduction in fatigue.
Researchers believe future investigations should move beyond single-drug approaches and instead identify specific biological subgroups of long COVID patients who may respond differently. Combination therapies, precision medicine strategies, and improved models of specialist care may ultimately prove more successful than relying on individual repurposed medications.
Conclusion
This landmark UK trial offers valuable evidence that will help shape future long COVID research. While the results may disappoint patients hoping for an immediate drug solution, they also demonstrate that structured specialist care remains important and that recovery can occur even without medication. Most importantly, the findings emphasize that long COVID is likely too complex to be treated with a single repurposed drug, reinforcing the need for personalized treatments that target the diverse biological mechanisms driving this persistent condition.
The study findings were published in the peer reviewed journal: The Lancet Infectious Diseases.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(26)00242-2/fulltext
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