{"id":5304,"date":"2020-03-18T08:53:41","date_gmt":"2020-03-18T08:53:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/?p=5304"},"modified":"2020-03-18T08:53:45","modified_gmt":"2020-03-18T08:53:45","slug":"avoid-taking-ibuprofen-for-covid-19-symptoms-who","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/avoid-taking-ibuprofen-for-covid-19-symptoms-who\/","title":{"rendered":"Avoid taking ibuprofen for COVID-19 symptoms &#8211; WHO"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>People suffering COVID-19 symptoms should avoid taking ibuprofen, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), following warnings from French officials that the anti-inflammatory drugs could worsen effects of the virus.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Earlier, French Health Minister <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/olivierveran\">Olivier Veran<\/a> tweeted a warning at the heels of a study in The Lancet medical journal that hypothesized that an enzyme boosted by anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen could facilitate and worsen COVID-19 infections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Veran &#8211; a qualified neurologist &#8211; warned that ibuprofen and other medicines known as Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs) could make things worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He tweeted: &#8220;Taking anti-inflammatory drugs (ibuprofen, cortisone, etc.) may be a factor in worsening the infection\u2026 If you have a fever, take paracetamol. If you are already on anti-inflammatory drugs or if in doubt, ask your doctor for advice.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While paracetamol and ibuprofen can bring a temperature down and help with flu-like symptoms, ibuprofen and other NSAIDs are not suitable for everyone and can cause side effects, particularly among people with asthma, heart and circulatory problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Asked about this, WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier said that the UN health agency&#8217;s experts were &#8220;looking into this to give further guidance&#8221; considering that there are no recent studies that link the anti-inflammatory drug with increased mortality rates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, &#8220;in the meantime, we recommend using rather paracetamol, and do not use ibuprofen as a self-medication. That&#8217;s important,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lindmeier, nonetheless, added that if ibuprofen had been &#8220;prescribed by the healthcare professionals, then, of course, that&#8217;s up to them.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Also, paracetamol must be taken strictly according to the recommended dose, because too much of it can damage the liver.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>People suffering COVID-19 symptoms should avoid taking ibuprofen, according to the World Health Organization.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5305,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2294,1966,590,757],"class_list":["post-5304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsmakers","tag-covid-19","tag-ibuprofen","tag-paracetamol","tag-world-health-organization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5304"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5306,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5304\/revisions\/5306"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}