Lopinavir/ritonavir use in Covid-19 infection: is it completely non-beneficial?

Covid-19 infection caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-COV-2 continues to be a major global health challenge. Till date, no drug has been approved for the treatment of this infection. A number of medications have been proposed and there are ongoing clinical trials around the world to find a suitable treatment. A recent randomised control trial compared lopinavir/ritonavir with standard care among 199 patients with severe Covid-19 infection and concluded that there was no significant reduction in mortality rate with lopinavir/ritonavir. However, there are a few important lessons which may be learnt from the study apart from the statistical reduction in mortality rate. There was a numerical reduction in mortality rate, less intensive care unit stay and less complications in the lopinavir-ritonavir group. This article points out some of those important lessons with some suggestions for future clinical trials. Copyright (c) 2020, Taiwan Society of Microbiology. Published by Elsevier Taiwan LLC. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync-nd/4.0/).