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On October 1, 2021, MSD Pharmaceutical announced that its new pill to treat the symptoms of COVID-19 You will be able to reduce the risk of hospitalization and death by approximately 50%.
The pills are, but are unlikely to be available to all covid sufferers, since they are designed to be taken as soon as possible once a person shows symptoms of the virus, that is, when the immune system has not yet developed a defense.
In the MSD trial, volunteers must have shown symptoms in the last five days, and some researchers believe the pills need to be taken even earlier to be most effective. Thus, the pills are intended for people who are sick with covid but who
The method of taking the pill is similar to taking Tamiflu for the common cold or an antibiotic for a urinary tract infection. Patients will take four capsules twice a day for five days, that is, 40 pills over the course of treatment.
MSD said the drug put the risk of hospitalization or death. In phase 3 of the trial, 7% of the volunteers in the group that received the drug were hospitalized and none died. In the group that received a placebo, 14% of the participants were hospitalized or died. However, the efficacy of the pill is less than 50% than that of , the intravenous cocktail of drugs used to treat high-risk people with mild or moderate COVID.
Despite this, the pill represents a breakthrough in achieving herd immunity. Merck hopes to be able to produce enough tablets by the end of this year. The US government has already ordered 1.7 million full treatments, but that number is nowhere near the number of pills needed by all people in the United States who fall ill with coronavirus.
For this reason, regarding the drug’s approval, Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser for coronavirus, mentioned that “The FDA will analyze the data and, as is typical, in a very efficient and effective way, it will examine the data as quickly as possible and after that a decision will be made.”
To the reassurance of many, it is known that Pfizer is also developing a similar pill, as are Atea Pharmaceuticals and Roche. , but they are unlikely to be available for use before next year.
El Tiempo, Colombia / GDA
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