@ יואל קסלר covid therapy – The FDA recently approved an oral antiviral therapy for treating COVID. Molnupiravir, developed by Merck works to inhibits RNA replication by mimicking the virus's genetic code and introducing errors that prevent replication. The therapy seems to be most effective at preventing severe disease and death when taken early in the course of illness; when the patient is first symptomatic. The approval by the FDA was controversial however, with the advisory committee voting thirteen to ten in favor of granting the approval. Some of the controversy was based in variability of the efficacy data from the studies. In the initial analysis of the phase3 data it was concluded that the drug had a forty eight percent decrease in hospitalization and death over placebo. However, an analysis of longer term data showed a benefit of only thirty percent.
As the rate of hospitalization or death in the treatment arm was6.8% and in the placebo9.7% some experts questioned the felt the efficacy was minimal.
Additionally, there are expected to be a significant risks to pregnant women or to the developing fetus as pre-clinical data showed the drug led to embryo death in rats.
After gaining the endorsement of the advisory committee, it will now be up to the Centers for Disease Control to determine the guidelines as to when this drug should be used and in which patient populations.
A second oral medication against COVID, paxlovid, which was developed by Pfizer has filed for approval as well. The company claims that it reduces the risk of hospitalization or death by eighty nine percent. As opposed to Merck's drug, paxlovid is a type of protease inhibitor. It is similar to a number of drugs that have been used to treat HIV for years. This drug works by damaging the proteins that the virus uses to help increase its replication and spread throughout the body.
More info on COVID treatments can be found on our COVID 19 page here.
. פ.ד.א אישר לאחרונה טיפול אנטי-ויראלי פומי לטיפול בקורונה
מולפוניראביר שנוצר בחברת מרק פועלת לעיכוב שכפול ר.נ.א על ידי חיקוי גנטי.
נראה כי הטיפול יעיל ביותר במניעת מחלות קשות ומוות כאשר נלקח מוקדם במהלך המחלה; כאשר החולה הוא סימפטומטי לראשונה
לאחר קבלת אישור הוועדה המייעצת, כעת יהיה בידי המרכז לבקרת מחלות לקבוע את ההנחיות לגבי מתי יש להשתמש בתרופה זו ובאילו אוכלוסיות חולים.
