Evidence mounts for need to study Pfizer’s Paxlovid for long COVID – researchers say

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Further studies of sufferers with lengthy COVID who had been helped by Pfizer Inc’s oral antiviral remedy Paxlovid supply contemporary impetus for conducting medical trials to check the medication for the debilitating situation, U.S. researchers stated on Thursday.

Three new case research observe earlier studies of lengthy COVID sufferers who skilled aid of their signs after taking the remedy, which is at present solely licensed for high-risk individuals early after onset of COVID signs.

As many as 30% of individuals contaminated by the coronavirus are believed to develop lengthy COVID, a situation that may final for a number of months with signs together with fatigue, fast heartbeat, shortness of breath, persistent ache, mind fog and muscle weak spot. It impacts individuals who have had each delicate and extreme COVID-19, together with kids, and may be extreme sufficient to maintain individuals out of labor.

In a report printed this week forward of peer overview, College of California, San Francisco (UCSF) researchers detailed circumstances of three sufferers who developed long-term signs after COVID-19 infections.

In two of the circumstances, the sufferers “had been in a position to entry Paxlovid antiviral remedy and really feel that their lengthy COVID signs improved considerably,” stated Dr. Michael Peluso, whose was printed on-line on Analysis Sq..

Within the third, a affected person was given the drug as prescribed to deal with an acute an infection. Whereas his signs improved at first, they rebounded shortly after he stopped taking the drug, and the man later developed lengthy COVID.

“There’s been a number of hope that early antiviral remedy, along with stopping extreme COVID, will stop lengthy COVID. And that could be true, however this case means that it will not be true 100% of the time,” Peluso stated.

All three sufferers, who had been of their 40s and had beforehand been vaccinated in opposition to COVID-19, had been enrolled within the UCSF lengthy COVID trial often called LIINC.

The circumstances aren’t definitive, however they provide clues about lengthy COVID, a poorly understood situation that has left researchers scrambling to search out its doable causes.

“It supplies proof that we actually want to check this quickly, and … systematically, which suggests randomized trials,” stated Peluso.

He stated the UCSF workforce would like to conduct such a examine, however it could require funding from companies such because the Nationwide Institutes of Well being, and the drugmaker.

Pfizer spokesman Package Longley stated firm doesn’t have any present lengthy COVID research underway, however was monitoring knowledge from ongoing medical research and real-world proof, and should discover the problem additional.

“Collectively, there may be now ample rationale to design and implement potential managed research of antiviral therapies, together with Paxlovid,” stated Dr. Steven Deeks of UCSF and a senior creator on the examine.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Modifying by Invoice Berkrot)