One of the hospitals of United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS) will be testing a new treatment for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) patients involving nicotine patches.
In a report by MailOnline, the Royal Glamorgan Hospital in South Wales will be the first NHS hospital to test nicotine patches for COVID-19 treatments.
The hospital’s trauma surgeon Jonathan Davies said that some studies have suggested that nicotine could be effective against the disease.
“We are looking at a number of possible points at which nicotine might be a valid intervention from prevention to treatment. Of course, none are proven at present and the idea of any trials would be to investigate further,” he said.
Earlier, a hospital in Paris said their research proved that tobacco may shield smokers from being infected with the disease. In a survey they conducted on 480 patients (350 were hospitalized while 130 were sent home due to mild symptoms), it showed that 4.4 percent of those hospitalized and 5.3 percent of those sent home were smokers. This showed that there are fewer daily smokers who were hospitalized.
The World Health Organisation (WHO), however, stressed that there is not enough evidence to back this claim, noting that it is constantly evaluating all possible data and urging the public to be cautious about any unproven claims.
