To determine safety profile of azithromycin in Covid-19 patients

Year 2022, Volume: 39 Issue: 1, 32 - 35, 01.01.2022

Khadija Asif , Farhat Abbas , Umar Javaid Sandhu

Abstract

At the end of the year 2019, a novel virus named Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV or COVID-19) first appeared in the Chinese city of Wuhan and the WHO declared the novel coronavirus disease as a global pandemic on March, 11th 2020. Corona Virus is RNA virus, major virus that affects respiratory system and can result in acute respiratory distress syndrome, so there emerged several management strategies to combat the challenge of the disease. Azithromycin is one of those treatment options. Azithromycin have been used widely and generally considered as safe medication. The design of this study is Cross-Sectional Study. The 80 Covid-19 positive in ICU were given Azithromycin along with other standard treatment, Side effects were divided into mild serious and allergic reactions. These were noted down in pre designed proforma. Data analysis was done in SPSS version 25. 80 patients were studied 38 (46.2%) patients experienced side effects, majority of which were mild in nature, Out of 80 patients Abdominal Pain was 37.5%, diarrhea 22.7% nausea 25%, transaminitis 2.5%, anorexia 26.3%, taste perversion 36.3%, dyspepsia 15%, vomiting 17.5%, headache 6.3% and somnolence 1.3%. Only 1 (1.25%) patients had arrhythmia and 1 (1.25%) had urticaria that was successfully treated. After this study this can be concluded that Azithromycin is safe drug as majority of side effects experienced were mild in nature and it can be safely used to treat Covid-19 positive patients.

Keywords

2019-nCoV, Azithromycin, COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2

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