Pfizer says its antiviral pill is effective against omicron

Pharma giant Pfizer has said that its anti-viral pill for COVID-19 seems to be effective against the omicron variant. The company said that three different lab studies had indicated that the main protease inhibitor of the drug, nirmatrelvir maintains its effectiveness against the omicron variant. For those who do not know about the protease inhibitor, it isna clas of drugs that prevents the virus from replicating. The patients will have to take two tablets of nirmatrelvir and a tablet of another anti-viral known as the ritonavir, twice a day for five days.

The drug Paxlovid is co sidered as a major step towards the fight against COVID-19 and the trials have indicated that it helps to relatively reduce the risk of hospitalization or death by 89 percent in patients who are tagged as high-risk. But then when the omicron variant was discovered, questions were raised on the effectiveness of Paxlovid. With that even other treatments for COVID-19 were questioned. This happened as the variant has more mutations when compared to other strains.

The findings were announced by Pfizer in a press release and said that it is all set to submit to the pre-print medical journals. Mikael Dolsten, the chief scientific officer at Pfizer said that the data has clearly indicated that the oral therapy and be an important and an effective tool to deal with the virus and with the current variants including the highly transmissible omicron. Dolsten added that they would continue to monitor the activity of the treatment in real-world setting and also believe that the in-vitro findings would continue to be validated.

On the other hand the Food and Drug Administration had last month authorized Paxlovid to be used for patients tagged as high-risk. Provided that Paxlovid is a pill, it is expected to be more accessible and easier to take. However, the treatment has to be started within five days of the beginning of the symptoms.

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