Paxlovid is fast becoming a popular drug against COVID-19, especially after reports that last month, United States President Joe Biden tested positive for the virus and was prescribed the antiviral.

Even here in Science Times, various articles on the drug have been shared to educate the public about it. But still, a lot of people don't know much about this COVID-19 drug.

 

That is why this site has again come up with this article with more things about Paxlovid that are unknown to many.

As specified in a WIRED report, this prescription drug can be taken outside of the hospital, which means that highly susceptible people, if infected, can use it at home to prevent themselves from developing severe and possibly life-threatening COVID-19 symptoms.

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Paxlovid
(Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Paxlovid is displayed on July 07, 2022, in Pembroke Pines, Florida. The US Food and Drug Administration revised the emergency use authorization for Paxlovid, Pfizer's Covid-19 antiviral treatment, to allow state-licensed pharmacists to prescribe the treatment to people.


1st Oral COVID-19 Antiviral Worldwide

Paxlovid became the first oral COVID-19 antiviral in the world when it was authorized by the US Food and Drug Administration and the United Kingdom Medicine and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency in December 2021.

With regulators authorizing the drug less than one year after the first recipient is given it in clinical trials, it has been described as the most rapid drug-development project in history.

Since then, the drug has been approved by the European Medicines Agency, and the United Nations stuck a deal with manufacturers to generate a generic version of it so that millions of doses can be provided to low- and middle-income nations starting April 2022

Developed by a leading pharmaceutical company, Pfizer, Paxlovid is a combination treatment. Meaning, that it contains two different drugs, including ritonavir and nirmatrelvir.

Nirmatrelvir and Ritonavir in Paxlovid

When SARS-CoV-2 infects a cell, it hijacks the cellular machinery to make the proteins it needs to create new copies of itself, enabling it to continue spreading inside the body.

Nirmatrelvir is the active antiviral found in Paxlovid. It's working by targeting an enzyme known as Mpro, which is present in a lot of coronaviruses and plays a vital role in their ability to reproduce.

Essentially, Nirmatrelvir stops Mpro from making the active protein SARS-CoV-2 should be replicated. It is a substance with a background that Pfizer first developed to destroy the first SARS virus in 2002.

The second drug, ritonavir, is a boosting agent, slowing down the rate at which nirmatrelvir is metabolized in the liver, which means the active antiviral is reaching higher concentrations in the body and lasts for longer before being cleared. Ritonavir has been used in HIV antiviral treatments to make them more effective.

Dosage and Efficacy

Paxlovid is usually taken as three tablets: two 50-milligram tablets of nirmatrelvir and one 100-milligram tablet of ritonavir twice daily for five consecutive days.

For efficacy at preventing the spread of the virus through the body and stopping the development of full-blown COVID-19, Paxlovid needs to be taken as soon as possible after an individual is infected, and at the very least, within five days of onset of the symptoms.

Essentially, Paxlovid is presently the most effective oral antiviral available for COVID-19. Paxlovid was found to alleviate the risk of hospital admission and death in highly susceptible COVID-19 patients by 89 percent in the clinical setting, which resulted in the drug's authorization by regulators.

Nonetheless, it has been discovered to be as effective in less severe conditions. When Pfizer examined if Paxlovid could help stop infections in those who had been exposed to symptomatic household contact within the last four days, the outcomes were not statistically substantial.

This means that there was not a big enough difference between the results of those who had and had not been given the drug to determine if it was making any difference.

Related information about Paxlovid is shown on MedCram's YouTube video below:

 

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