Scientists are hopeful that Paxlovid may help guard against long COVID : Shots

It is well-documented that Paxlovid — a 5-day course of antiviral tablets from Pfizer — can cut back the chance of hospitalization in COVID-19 sufferers who usually tend to develop extreme sickness.

Now, researchers from the Veterans Well being Administration discover that taking the remedy can also cut back the dangers of later creating lengthy COVID, in keeping with a new study that was posted on-line this weekend and has not but undergone peer overview.

“We have already identified for a while now that Paxlovid reduces the chance of acute issues,” says Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, chief of analysis and improvement on the VA Saint Louis Healthcare System, and co-author of the research, “Now we’re including the commentary that Paxlovid additionally reduces the chance of lengthy COVID.”

The drug, which has been obtainable within the U.S. for nearly a yr, is offered without spending a dime by the federal authorities at pharmacies across the country. It requires a prescription, and sufferers with COVID-19 should begin it inside 5 days of symptom onset.

Much less virus, much less lengthy COVID?

Within the research, lengthy COVID was outlined as creating a number of signs — together with coronary heart points, blood issues, fatigue and hassle respiratory — one to a few months after testing optimistic. By these metrics, sufferers that took Paxlovid have been 26% much less prone to develop lengthy COVID.

To get to this discovering, the researchers combed by digital well being data from greater than 56,000 sufferers within the VA well being system who examined optimistic for COVID-19 between March and June 2022, and had a minimum of one risk factor for severe disease. They in contrast well being outcomes of 9,000 sufferers that had taken Paxlovid early of their course of sickness, with 47,000 sufferers that had not.

The advantages of taking Paxlovid did not simply apply to those that have been unvaccinated. Sufferers who have been vaccinated or boosted, or had repeat COVID-19 infections, had the same discount within the danger of creating lengthy COVID, the research discovered.

The research is a preprint, which means it was shared publicly earlier than being reviewed and vetted by outdoors researchers. However consultants who weren’t concerned within the research inform NPR the findings make sense, given how Paxlovid works.

The antiviral drug stops the virus from replicating in cells. “We all know that one of many key components that predict lengthy COVID is detectable virus within the bloodstream on the time of an infection,” Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious illness doctor on the College of California, San Francisco, wrote in an e mail. “So it stands to motive that interventions that forestall the virus from making extra copies of itself would due to this fact result in a decrease danger of lengthy COVID.”

Previous research have proven that Paxlovid reduces the dangers of hospitalization and loss of life from COVID-19. “For the reason that set off of lengthy COVID is acute an infection with SARS-CoV-2, it makes intuitive sense that something that lowers the severity of this an infection would scale back the chance of lengthy COVID, whether or not it is Paxlovid or different antiviral therapies,” Dr. Paul Sax, an infectious illness doctor at Brigham and Girls’s Hospital in Boston, wrote in an e mail.

A place to begin

Nonetheless, consultants view the research as solely a place to begin for exploring the potential makes use of of Paxlovid. The VA research was observational, based mostly on information entered into affected person well being data – in Sax’s view, “the imprecision of the [long COVID] analysis makes definitive conclusions from this research difficult, particularly with a retrospective overview.”

However the worth of the research is that it factors researchers down promising pathways for extra analysis, says Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious illness doctor at UCSF. “It is hypothesis-generating,” she says, “It is thrilling and hopeful [to think] that when you cut back the viral load… right down to undetectable [early in the illness], perhaps you may forestall post-COVID signs” altogether – a idea she thinks researchers may pursue.

Each Sax and Gandhi say they might really feel extra assured within the outcomes in the event that they have been replicated in further research, particularly in experimental, randomized controlled trials that evaluate lengthy COVID outcomes in sufferers who took both Paxlovid or a placebo. The VA research’s findings are additionally restricted by the truth that the members have been predominantly white males, elevating the chance that the advantages of Paxlovid could possibly be completely different in different teams of sufferers.

Presently, Paxlovid is simply authorized for use in sufferers who’ve danger components – like being older or having underlying well being situations – that put them at excessive danger of creating extreme illness. Al-Aly says the discount in lengthy COVID danger, raised in his research, suggests others would possibly profit from taking Paxlovid, too. However many sufferers who at present have lengthy COVID have been comparatively younger and wholesome earlier than they bought COVID-19 and should not have certified for Paxlovid once they examined optimistic, he says.

“Does Paxlovid use in a lower-risk inhabitants cut back the chance of acute issues and subsequently cut back the chance of lengthy COVID?” Al-Aly wonders, “I believe that is a query that all of us want to resolve over the following a number of months.”

It is also an open query whether or not the next dose or an extended remedy course may present a higher profit, Chin-Hong says.

Side effects that embrace nausea and an off-putting style have given sufferers pause about utilizing the product. Studies of COVID rebound in Paxlovid sufferers, the place the sickness flares up after a seeming respite, has made some prescribers ambivalent in regards to the product. These are actual concerns, Al-Aly says, however they need to be weighed in opposition to the advantages of Paxlovid remedy, together with lowered dangers of hospitalization and loss of life within the acute part, and the potential for avoiding lengthy COVID within the months after.

Gandhi says the research’s findings could now issue into clinicians’ choices, even when the outcomes are preliminary and haven’t but been replicated.

“This research is pushing me to make use of [Paxlovid] in people who find themselves over 65, vaccinated and boosted, as a result of it is most likely going to produce other advantages past stopping hospitalization,” she says.