Paxlovid News: Demand, Supply, Mouth, and Relapse

 

Back in November, I blogged about new antiviral treatments that could nip a COVID-19 infection in the bud. The best one was Paxlovid, produced by Pfizer, and it reduced the chances of hospitalization by 89%.

The big question mark at that time was how fast the drug company would be able to ramp-up production. In January Pfizer agreed to produce 10 million courses of treatment for the U.S. government. It is a key part of a test-to-treat initiative where people testing positive at a clinic or pharmacy would be immediately given a pack of the pills.

Since then there have been a few bumps in the road. First, just a couple weeks ago there were reports that pharmacies were struggling to use available supplies because of confusion about who was eligible to receive the treatment. That problem seems to have been resolved with more recent reports that prescriptions are up.

A second issue is "Paxlovid mouth" a type of dysgeusia. It doesn't happen to everyone, but when it does it sounds pretty disgusting, with one guy likening the taste to a combination of grapefruit juice and soap. Yum!

Third, there have been cases of relapse though they are not common, occurring in about 2% of patients. Symptoms disappear and tests go negative, only to reverse after about a week. In some cases the infection can come back stronger than the initial one.

Finally, there is the perennial problem of access for poorer countries. In March Pfizer agreed to produce 4 million courses for UNICEF, for distribution to poorer countries. That is, of course, a drop in the ocean of the world's poor population. Those who advocate for them feel a sense of  déjà vu, remembering a similar situation with AIDS drugs.

Update May 10

Stephen Colbert, whose show I watch regularly, was out with COVID recently. When he came back a week ago he mentioned taking Paxlovid. Yesterday his staff tweeted that he had suffered a relapse and would be off for a while longer. Looks like he may be one of those two percenters mentioned above.

Popular posts from this blog

Looks Like Immune Responses are Enduring After All

Image
 For some time, public health officials have fretted about whether immunity to COVID-19, acquired via infection or vaccination would stick.  Studies showed rapid declines in antibodies during recovery from infection and thereafter . It turns out that this concern was overblown. A study just released says bone marrow plasma cells are a persistent source of protective antibodies, and that "circulating resting memory B cells directed against the S protein were detected in the convalescent individuals."   Another study , yet to be reviewed, suggests that vaccines boost this effect. In fact, some are suggesting this situation this could actually mean  lifetime immunity .   Whether the same thing happens with vaccination is not clear. Most estimates suggest that vaccine immunity will last about a year . More pessimistic estimates putting the protection period at six months .  The possible shorter time frame, plus the appearance of the new variants, have the vaccine makers working
Read more

Another One Bites the Dust

Image
Hi all. Stepping out of retirement for a moment to say that the day has finally arrived. After four years of successfully avoiding COVID-19 infection I had a positive test yesterday. Symptoms are very mild—I've had worse colds. The provider at urgent care said almost all the cases they are seeing are the same. Mild symptoms may also be due to the fact that I had the original vaccine then the two boosters. All this time I thought I might be a NOVID —one of those people who never get the bug. But no, it must have been my assiduous mask wearing and avoidance of high-risk situations when things were bad. So here's double middle fingers to all the kooks who think masks don't work (I've not been wearing masks for months now). I don't know what variant I have but it's likely JN.1. It is said to be extraordinarily contagious and accounts for 60% of cases worldwide . It also tends to produce mild infections like the one I have.  This article claims that right now every
Read more

AZ Pandemic Numbers Summary for the Seven Days Ending November 9: Everything is Going South

Image
Here are the Arizona pandemic numbers and graph of statewide cases for the seven day period ending yesterday: Well this isn't good. The lull seems to be over. Virtually every number is up, both over a week and over four weeks. The most worrisome is hospital beds, which have been steadily trending up over the last several weeks.  Wastewater signals are all up except Tempe (dashboard is up again) which after going up last week (from 41 to 100) decreased by about 10%. The increases are worrisome because the latest data from ASU's Lim Lab (last updated October 31), where they sequence PCR samples to identify variants, shows that only about 46% of sequences showed BA.5. That is one of the Omicron variants the new bivalent vaccine was designed to protect against.  All the rest of the samples are BA.2.75 (7.7%), which I flagged several weeks ago, and BQ,1.1 (15.4%), and BQ.1 (30.8%), both of which I blogged about a couple weeks ago.  Those, new research confirms , are much more lik
Read more