WHO ‘strongly recommends’ Pfizer's Covid-19 pill for at-risk patients: Report

LONDON: The World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday said that it “strongly recommends” Pfizer’s Covid-19 antiviral pill Paxlovid for patients with milder forms of the disease who were still at a high risk of hospitalization, said news agency AFP.

However, the global health agency warned that it was “extremely concerned” that the inequality in access seen with Covid-19 vaccines would again leave low-and-middle-income countries “pushed to the end of the queue.”

The WHO experts said in the BMJ medical journal that US pharma giant Pfizer’s combination of nirmatrelvir and ritonavir was the “superior choice” of treatment for unvaccinated, elderly or immunocompromised people with Covid-19.

For the same patients, the WHO also made a “conditional (weak) recommendation” of the antiviral drug remdesivir, made by US biotech firm Gilead, that it had previously recommended against.

The WHO recommended Paxlovid over remdesivir, as well as over Merck’s molnupiravir pill and monoclonal antibodies, news agency AFP reported. Pfizer’s oral treatment prevents hospitalization more than the “available alternatives, has fewer concerns with respect to harms than molnupiravir, and is easier to administer than intravenous remdesivir and antibodies,” the WHO’s experts said.

The new recommendation was based on the findings of two trials involving almost 3,100 patients which showed that Paxlovid reduced the risk of hospital admission by 85%.

Meanwhile, Johns Hopkins scientist Amita Gupta has warned that vaccine inequity remains an issue both within India, where less than 2 per cent of the population has received a Covid booster, and the globe with 56 countries unable to inoculate even 10 percent of their people.

Tracking hospitalisation rates which provide an indicator of the severity of illness is key, the chief of the Division of Infectious Disease, and Professor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine said while stressing that no one is safe from Covid until everyone in the world gets vaccinated.

She cited the example of the Omicron variant to buttress her point. The highly transmissible variant is believed to have emerged in November last year in South Africa and Botswana due to inadequate immunisation in African countries before spreading globally, Gupta said, adding that another variant is likely to follow the same trend.

Meanwhile, an expert panel of India's central drug authority has recommended granting emergency use authorisation for Biological E's COVID-19 vaccine Corbevax for children in the five to 11 years age group with certain conditions, official sources said on Thursday.

The Subject Expert Committee (SEC) on COVID-19 of the CDSCO has, on the other hand, sought more data from Bharat Biotech to review its emergency use authorisation (EUA) application for use of Covaxin among those aged two to 11 years, they said.

The SEC has also recommended the grant of emergency use authorisation (EUA) to Cadila for their ZyCoV-D vaccine for an additional dose of 3mg with a two-jab inoculation schedule 28 days apart for those aged 12 years and above, another source said.

Presently, ZyCoV-D is approved for a 2mg three-dose vaccination schedule. Biological E's Corbevax is being used to inoculate children against COVID-19 in the age group of 12 to 14 years. Covaxin has been granted Emergency Use Listing by the DCGI for the age group of 12 to 18 years on December 24, 2021.

India began inoculating children aged 12-14 on March 16.

(With PTI Inputs)

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