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New covid drugs are here and can change the pandemic

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So why would these drug companies put such a big push behind drugs, if not everything they claimed to be effective? Reputation and market share, and perhaps the ability to sell other drugs when Covid is under control. “The more drugs like that available in India, China and sub-Saharan Africa, then Pfizer can sell all the other drugs it wants to sell,” Iyer says. “Hospitals can absorb all the medicines they make for people with cancer or disease. And in terms of reputation, it helps a lot. ”

To be clear, this does not mean that drugs have no effect. It is likely, for example, that Paxlovid will decrease by 89 percent over time. “If these drugs are used in hospital patients once they appear, 10 days after the onset of the disease, they won’t have much of an effect,” says David Boulware, an infectious disease physician at the University of Minnesota. involved Covid numerous drug tests. On the one hand, people should try Covid before receiving the recipe. “That’s complicated. It’s hard. In low-income countries, it is easier for people to get vaccinated. If you can vaccinate high-risk people, that’s a much better option than trying to deal with diagnosis and treatment. “

Both drugs have complications in terms of actual use. Molnupiravir has been in operation for 20 years and is aimed at many different diseases. Mills says most virologists have been reluctant to find any real use because of mutagenicity problems that researchers have seen over the years in analyzes and trials. It may not be used in women who are pregnant or may become pregnant, for example. One last one Article in Estad said Merck found no animal testing for molnupiravir, and Estad A CEO of Mercke mentioned to investors that the company has “confidence” in its drug safety profile.

Ritonavir, the second component of the Pfizer package, does not inhibit liver activity; it also has known interactions with anticoagulant drugs and highly prescribed anti-cholesterol. So people who take them will have to change the dose, or stop taking it for five full days of the course. Not impossible, but not easy, either.

Having said all that, many researchers and public health experts believe the new drugs will help. Even Mills says he thinks they will have an impact, though it’s hard to know how far. And the fact that there are no deaths at the Paxlovid trial could be surprising if the model takes in more than tens of thousands of people. “I am very optimistic here,” says Tulio de Olveira, director of the KwaZulu-Natal Research and Innovation Sequencing Platform at KwaZulu-Natal University in South Africa. “The companies, Merck and Pfizer, released clear guidelines that the price of medicines will be much lower for developing countries. In addition, they are already working with several local companies to produce drugs in the developing world.”

Aside from the fact that large pharmaceutical companies have to justify their huge pre-orders to governments, these governments may have seen more data than companies have publicly released. “They have two trials. They’ve seen data we don’t have, ”says Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute. “They’ve seen it beyond the press release and, as you can see, they’ve bought ten million doses of two pills.” Topola, who has continued efforts to develop vaccines and medicines throughout the pandemic, suggests that unpublished data is as good as public figures.

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