COVID-19: How Significant Are the Anti-viral Oral Pills for Treatment?

Pfizer’s Paxlovid, currently in clinical trials, claims to reduce the risk of hospitalisation by 89 percent.

Podcast on COVID-19 treatment oral pills- Merck’s Molnupiravir and Pfizer’s Paxlovid. Image used for representation only.

(Photo: Aroop Mishra/ The Quint)

The world for the past few months has been speaking a lot on COVID vaccines and how it is our way out of this pandemic. But it will be a long time before the entire world is vaccinated. So what do we do to prevent severe symptoms or hospitalisation till then?

A new anti-viral pill for COVID-19 treatment from pharma giants Merck and Pfizer Inc, aims to reduce the risk of hospitalisation and even death. These new drugs – Merck’s Molnupiravir and Pfizer’s Paxlovid – are currently in their clinical trials but have shown promising results, especially the latter, which claims to reduce the risk of hospitalisation by 89 percent.

And countries have already started recognising the significance of these pills, with the United Kingdom being the first country to approve Molnupiravir and purchased nearly half a million courses.

So what are these new drugs exactly? How do they work and more importantly, are they safe?

To discuss this, we speak with Vaishali Sood, The Quint’s Health Editor and Dr Rakesh Mishra, the former Director of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and an Advisor to CEBM.