What COVID-19 therapies are available in the United States?

Washington-The United States recently added two new weapons to its small weapons against the coronavirus. It is a pill that patients can take at home to treat COVID-19.

Pfizer and Merck’s medications join several other treatments that have been shown to blunt the worst effects of the virus. However, each treatment has different benefits and tends to be optimal for certain types of patients at different stages of the disease.

Let’s take a look at the current COVID-19 drugs and how to use them.

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Prescription drugs are the first COVID-19 therapy that does not require infusions or injections by medical professionals.

The Food and Drug Administration approved Pfizer’s Pax Rovid on Wednesday and Merck’s Molnupiravir on Thursday.

Merck’s drugs are for adults who test positive for COVID-19, have early symptoms, and are at the highest risk of hospitalization. Pfizer is also aimed at people over the age of 12 who are at the highest risk of hospitalization.

Pfizer’s medications have the potential to be the first-line treatment for the virus because of its superior benefits and mild side effects. Molnupiravir warns against use during pregnancy and its potential to cause birth defects. The FDA also stated that molnupiravir should only be considered if other treatments are not available or are inadequate for the patient.

Both treatments should be started shortly after the onset of symptoms. This means that patients need to be tested and diagnosed quickly.

Experts predict that antiviral drugs, as well as HIV drugs, can be combined to fight COVID-19.

Antibody drug

For over a year, antibody drugs have been the treatment of choice for patients with early COVID-19 symptoms who do not yet require hospitalization.

These three drugs have been approved for treatment in the United States and have been shown to reduce the risk of hospitalization and death by more than 70% when administered within 10 days of symptoms. They are primarily used in high-risk adults with early-stage COVID-19 symptoms, but may also be used to prevent infection in people who are very vulnerable to the virus.

However, Omicron variants have diminished their enthusiasm for them. Pharmaceutical companies Regeneron and Eli Lilly have recently tested in the laboratory to suggest that antibody therapy is much less effective against Omicron, which contains dozens of mutations that make it difficult for treatment to attack the virus. I warned that.

The third option by the British pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline seems to be in the best position to fight Omicron, but it is not widely available in the United States.

Drugs have some limitations: they must be infused or injected by healthcare professionals, and they are expensive and complicated to manufacture.

Treatment in the hospital

The antiviral drug remdesivir continues to be the only drug for inpatients specifically targeting coronavirus.

It is used for patients who need extra oxygen but do not need a respiratory system. In such cases, recovery times have been shown to be reduced by a few days. However, the drug has not been shown to improve survival and has been disapproved by many doctors. And the World Health Organization does not recommend it, given its cost and lack of clear benefits.

Topical steroids, a staple of emergency medicine, have been shown to increase survival in hospitalized COVID-19 patients by blunting inflammation and other immune system responses. This causes the worst effects of the disease at a later stage.

US regulators have also approved giving plasma transfusions from people who have recovered from COVID-19 to newly infected people. However, there is little evidence that it significantly reduces illness and death.

The US Expert Committee has concluded that the evidence is inadequate for many and is not recommended for inpatients with non-immunized immunity. And WHO recently recommended against its continued use.

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The Associated Press’s Department of Health Sciences is supported by the Science Education Department of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. AP is solely responsible for all content.