An observation on cefixime in a severe COVID infection.
My husband got infected with the latest strain recently. It was severe, and by day 5 he was not improving but going downhill. My brother, a family physician abroad who has seen thousands of COVID patients since the pandemic started, suggested cefixime 400 mg a day. He said he doesn't know the mechanism, but his severe patients have improved on a 5-day course, and he extends it to 7 to 10 days depending on the progress.
Within 24 hours of the first dose, my husband started to get visibly better. He took it for 7 days and had recovered by the end of the course.
The obvious caveat: this is one case, and I can't separate the drug from the natural course of the illness. What struck me was the timing of the change and that my brother reports the same pattern across many patients.
A possible mechanism: there is work proposing that SARS-CoV-2 can interact with and replicate in gut bacteria. If that holds, an antibiotic acting on those bacteria could reduce the viral reservoir. It is early work and not yet replicated, but it is the hypothesis that fits what we saw.
P.S.: This is an experience, not medical advice. I am sharing it in the hope it gets some scientists' attention and they may think to design a study.