Pfizer’s Paxlovid antiviral lowered long-Covid risk in study
- Taking oral medication within five days of testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection linked to 26 per cent lower risk of lingering postviral complications
- Long Covid is estimated to afflict almost 150 million people worldwide and predicted to cost US$3.7 trillion in the US alone
Pfizer blockbuster Paxlovid antiviral that lowers rates of illness and death in people infected with the coronavirus also cuts the risk of some symptoms of disabling long Covid, a study found.
Taking the oral medication within five days of testing positive for a SARS-CoV-2 infection was linked to a 26 per cent lower risk of lingering postviral complications, researchers with the Veterans Affairs St Louis Health Care System said in the study.
That equates to 2.3 fewer cases of long Covid within three months of infection for every 100 patients treated, according to the findings released Saturday on the medRxiv server ahead of publication in a peer-reviewed journal.
The research, based on an analysis of electronic health records in databases maintained by the Department of Veterans Affairs, is the first study to look at Paxlovid’s longer-term effects, said Eric Topol, founder of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in La Jolla, California.
It suggests that wider use of the treatment won’t just stave off critical disease during the acute phase of infection, but will limit patients’ likelihood of longer-term problems.
“Before this report, the only way we have known to reduce long Covid was to avoid a Covid infection [100 per cent effective!] and some reduction afforded by prior vaccination and boosters, the level of that protection mostly in the range of 30 to 50 per cent,” Topol, who wasn’t involved in the study, said in a blog post. The VA study adds a third approach, he said.