By Dennis Thompson HealthDay Reporter
FRIDAY, June 7, 2024 — An prolonged course of the antiviral drug Paxlovid received’t ease an individual’s Lengthy COVID signs, a brand new research finds.
Individuals who took Paxlovid for 15 days — 3 times so long as it’s prescribed for an preliminary COVID an infection — had no higher enchancment of their Lengthy COVID than individuals taking a placebo, researchers reported June 7 within the journal JAMA Inner Drugs.
“Whereas there are actually improved therapies and therapy practices for acute COVID, there’s nothing FDA-approved for Lengthy COVID,” stated senior researcher Dr. Upinder Singh, chief of infectious illness and geographic medication on the Stanford College Faculty of Drugs. “Folks proceed to undergo and the numbers preserve piling up.”
An estimated 10% to twenty% of COVID sufferers — tens of tens of millions in the US alone — develop Lengthy COVID, a group of signs that are likely to crop up three months or extra after an individual’s preliminary an infection.
One principle has held that Lengthy COVID would possibly happen as a consequence of leftover virus or viral particles that continues to be in an individual’s deep tissues even after they’ve cleared the an infection.
“Some research recommend that viral particles and molecular particles may very well be answerable for some Lengthy-COVID victims’ ongoing signs,” Singh stated in a Stanford information launch. “We figured if that’s the case, perhaps treating them with Paxlovid may relieve a few of these signs.”
Between November 2022 and September 2023, the researchers recruited 155 Lengthy COVID sufferers who’d been contaminated with COVID greater than 16 months earlier. Every participant reported at the least two out of six frequent Lengthy COVID signs — fatigue, mind fog, shortness of breath, physique aches and coronary heart or GI signs.
Half the sufferers had been randomly assigned to a 15-day course of Paxlovid, and the remainder a placebo. Folks take 5 days of the antiviral to combat off an acute COVID an infection.
At 10 weeks, there was no statistically important distinction in signs between the 2 teams, researchers report.
The trial did have one constructive consequence, nonetheless — it confirmed that folks can safely take a protracted course of Paxlovid.
“One affordable implication of our outcomes is that Paxlovid will be given safely for an extended time frame,” Singh stated, “for instance, in situations the place a newly contaminated affected person is immunocompromised.”
Singh stated these outcomes, whereas discouraging, don’t fully rule out the potential for Paxlovid to be useful in treating Lengthy COVID. For instance, future assessments would possibly strive the drug on individuals who’ve extra just lately developed Lengthy COVID.
“Ought to we now have examined sufferers with signs current after solely seven or eight months as an alternative of 16 or 17?” Singh stated. “Ought to we now have handled them for an extended time? Had been we even testing the fitting sufferers? Perhaps just some signs shall be attentive to antiviral therapy.”
The workforce will proceed to research the outcomes from this trial, to see whether or not specific individuals had been helped greater than others.
The trial was funded by Pfizer Inc., the maker of Paxlovid.
Sources
- Stanford Drugs, information launch, June 7, 2024
Disclaimer: Statistical information in medical articles present common tendencies and don’t pertain to people. Particular person elements can range vastly. At all times search personalised medical recommendation for particular person healthcare selections.
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Posted June 2024
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