Hong Kong doctors call on government to allow private practitioners to prescribe oral anti-Covid drugs
- Doctors say letting private clinics administer the drugs could help reduce number of severe cases at community level, especially among elderly
- Some, however, have also acknowledged government’s supply of new antiviral drugs is limited
Doctors have suggested the Hong Kong government allow private practitioners to prescribe oral anti-Covid drugs, saying the move could help reduce the number of severe cases at the community level, especially among the elderly.
Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor said on Friday she was open to the idea, as long as private doctors were willing to help treat Covid-19 patients and not just refer them to already overburdened public hospitals.
Dr Shea Tat-ming, a private specialist in geriatric medicine currently working at the government-run isolation facility at AsiaWorld-Expo, told a radio programme he had a positive experience prescribing the antiviral molnupiravir over the past two weeks.
“The effect is quite good, and there is no obvious side effect, with only one [patient] suffering from bloating and another from diarrhoea,” he said.
The best time for patients to start taking the medication was in the early stage, he said, just after they developed symptoms and before being admitted to hospital, as the pills might not have an impact on cases that had already worsened. But if administered early, they could reduce the need for patients to seek hospital treatment.