United States: The COVID-19 antiviral treatment Paxlovid may have potential when it comes to long-term COVID but not when used to treat an infection, according to a tiny study published on Monday.
How Paxlovid Works
Receipt of Paxlovid during a SARS-CoV-2 infection has earlier been associated with a lower risk of becoming a long COVID sufferer. However, one research done by scientists in the Nature Science magazine points to the fact that taking the treatment can produce benefits in regards to long-term Covid in men and women who do not have an active viral infection, as reported by The Hills.
Paxlovid is administered when a patient emerges positive for COVID-19 at an early stage within five days of the onset of COVID-19 symptoms. The treatment is a cycle of two medications – two pills of nirmatrelvir and one pill of ritonavir – that should be taken at two different intervals within a day for five days in total.
A Small but Promising Case Series
The patient-led research collaborative that conducted the study involved 13 participants with long COVID who received rounds of Paxlovid that lasted over five days. The participants had infections arising from variants such as the one that started in 2020, as well as the delta and the omicron variants.
The participants self-administered Paxlovid from seven and a half days to thirty days. Members of the group contracted COVID-19 between the period of 2020 and 2023.
Key Findings
Of the thirteen participants, seven stated that their long COVID symptoms improved, and five out of those seven reported that the improvement was lasting.
A study participant, a 56-year-old male who contracted COVID-19 in 2020 with the initial strain, initially received a standard five-day course of Paxlovid in September 2022 for his lingering long COVID symptoms.
However, after Paxlovid exposure in December with a 15-day regiment course, the participant noted his neurocognitive symptoms alleviated. Seven days after he underwent this treatment, he stated that he had bettered up almost near completion in his symptoms.
The study’s authors were aware of the limitations of their investigation.
“First, while this study is large for a case series, it is still only reporting on the experiences of 13 individuals, who may or may not be representative of the experiences of all patients with Long COVID,” they wrote. They also noted that the participants were all people with enough “technological savvy to communicate over the internet or phone” and spoke English proficiently.
A Call for Further Research
This study also included self-reporting of patients, and again, there was recall bias, and at some point, patients could have become fatigued. However, the authors of the study also included strengths of the study, such as the fact that it was a pioneering study whose data could not otherwise have been obtained through the normal medical record, as reported by The Hills.
“While the case series findings are heterogeneous, we describe the use of long courses of Paxlovid as a potentially promising pharmaceutical treatment to support at least some people with Long COVID,” wrote the researchers. “These cases provide a strong rationale for the ongoing study of antivirals for Long COVID to determine if, when, and how they should be used in this patient population.”
Conflict of Interest
Michael Perluso revealed one of the conflicts of interest as he had a consultant-like relationship with Gilead Sciences and AstraZeneca, which are rivals to Pfizer, which manufactures Paxlovid.
