LONDON: Britain will expand access to Pfizer’s oral antiviral COVID-19 treatment to thousands more people by adding it to a trial to assess how best to use the drug in its highly vaccinated population, the health ministry said on Tuesday.
Paxlovid, a combination of Pfizer’s new pill with an older antiviral ritonavir, was made available to thousands of people with compromised immune systems in Britain in February.
Now Paxlovid is being added to the Panoramic national study in England, which is making antivirals available to a wide number of patients while collecting data on how the drugs should best be used in a vaccinated adult population.
Paxlovid was shown to reduce the relative risk of death or hospitalization by nearly 90 percent in clinical trials of high risk individuals given the treatment for five days. Currently it is advised to be taken during the early stages of COVID, though last month was added to another trial for hospitalized patients.
Britain has reported 170,000 deaths from COVID-19, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson has cited antivirals as part of his plan to learn to live with the virus, saying they can cut deaths among those who do not benefit as much from vaccine protection, such as the immunosuppressed.
“As we learn to live with COVID, the UK continues to lead the way in using cutting-edge treatments which have already saved the lives of many of the country’s most vulnerable patients,” health minister Sajid Javid said in a statement.
The Panoramic study is open to adults over age 50, or those aged between 18 and 49 who have underlying health conditions that may put them at higher risk for severe COVID.
Paxlovid is the second antiviral to be added to the trial after molnupiravir, a pill made by Merck & Co. and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics that did not perform as well in its pivotal clinical trial.
The health ministry said that 20,000 people had joined the Panoramic study to generate data on molnupiravir, with a further 17,500 people to be enrolled to access Paxlovid.
Britain widens access to Pfizer’s COVID antiviral drug through trial
https://arab.news/6r86q
Britain widens access to Pfizer’s COVID antiviral drug through trial
- Paxlovid is the second antiviral to be added to the trial after molnupiravir, a pill made by Merck & Co. and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics
Indonesia nursing home fire kills 16: official
JAKARTA: A fire at a nursing home on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi killed more than a dozen people, with three others injured, a local official said Monday.
Firefighters received the report of the blaze at 8:31 p.m. Sunday at a nursing home in the North Sulawesi provincial capital Manado, said the city’s fire and rescue agency chief Jimmy Rotinsulu.
“There were 16 deaths; three (people) had burn injuries,” he told AFP.
Many bodies of the victims were found inside their rooms, Jimmy said, adding that many of the elderly residents were likely resting in their rooms in the evening when the fire broke out.
Authorities managed to evacuate 12 people — all unhurt — and transfer them to a local hospital, he said.
Footage aired by local broadcaster Metro TV showed the fire engulfing the nursing home, while locals helped to evacuate an elderly person.
Deadly fires are not uncommon in Indonesia, a Southeast Asian archipelago of more than 17,000 islands.
A fire tore through a seven-story office building in Indonesia’s capital Jakarta this month, killing at least 22 people.
In 2023, at least 12 people were killed in the country’s east after an explosion at a nickel-processing plant.
