Coronavirus: Hong Kong looking to procure world’s first Covid-19 pill
- Sources tell the Post that Hospital Authority is planning to buy hundreds of courses of the antiviral medication, known as molnupiravir
- Antiviral medication made headlines after manufacturers released promising results from trials
Sources told the Post that health authorities planned to buy hundreds of courses of the antiviral medication, which made headlines on Friday after pharmaceutical giant MSD and its partner Ridgeback Biotherapeutics released promising results from their trials.
The trials involved 775 adults with mild to moderate Covid-19 who were randomly picked from more than 20 countries and deemed to be highly prone to severe illness due to health problems such as obesity, diabetes or heart disease.
Half of the trial participants were given a five-day course of the experimental drug, known as molnupiravir, in the form of small, brown capsules taken twice a day, while the others received a placebo. According to the results, only 28 patients, or 7.3 per cent, of those given the drug were hospitalised, compared with 53, or 14.1 per cent, in the placebo group.
After the trial, no deaths were reported among those who received the drug, while the placebo group had eight. The data, however, has not been peer-reviewed and the drug has not yet been licensed for use.
Three medical sources confirmed to the Post that Hong Kong was looking to procure the medication.
“The Hospital Authority plans to purchase 500 patient courses, but they are also thinking about more,” Professor David Hui Shu-cheong, a government pandemic adviser, said on Saturday.
He revealed that the drug costs about US$700 per course for each patient.