FDA reevaluating the reports of “viral load rebound” following concerns about the antiviral drug.
QUICK FACTS:
- Pfizer’s antiviral pill Paxlovid could cause patients to experience a second round of the illness shortly after their recovery from the first, according to NBC News.
- Experts are calling the phenomenon “viral rebound,” when a person gets better from their illness and then sick again.
- However, the strange occurrence has put pressure on federal drug agencies to investigate and offer guidance to health care providers about how they should respond.
EXPERT’S TAKE ON PFIZER’S ANTI-VIRAL:
- “There’s still so much we don’t know about Covid-19 and the best way to treat it,” said Dr. H. Clifford Lane, deputy director for clinical research and special projects at the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “These anecdotes give us reason to re-examine duration of therapy, approaches to therapy, other laboratory tests we might use to predict who could benefit from longer courses of treatment,” Lane added.
- Infectious disease specialist Dr. Céline Gounder, an editor at large for public health at Kaiser Health News, however, said patients need to be watchful since it is a new treatment: “If someone has a case of post-Paxlovid SARS-CoV-2 relapse versus reinfection, it’s important that this be flagged to public health authorities,” Gounder said. “The virus should be sequenced so we can learn if it’s mutated and developed resistance to Paxlovid.”
BACKGROUND:
- The anti-viral drug has been prescribed since December of last year when the Food and Drug Administration granted its use via emergency authorization for those at high risk.
- Currently, the prescription is a five-day course meant to reduce the risk of hospitalizations and death in those experiencing COVID-19 symptoms.
- Many likened the anti-viral to the controversial Ivermectin treatment pushed by former President Donald Trump following its being endorsed by medical doctors working on COVID treatment.
- Pfizer’s new drug has received approval from current government agencies specifically for COVID treatment and the White House has said that it is doubling the number of locations where Paxlovid is available, due to the fact it has gone unused in many places across the nation.
