On Friday, Merck announced that they have formed a pill that is successful in reducing the number of death and hospitalization in people by 50% affected by corona. This is indeed some great news if it turns out that the pill really works.
They did say that the pill seems to work on only moderately affected cases, and that actually implies that the pill might not be that useful for severely affected patients. Anyway, the company is still seeking approval for the emergency use of the pills for the patients because of the compelling results that they got out of it.
The drug that is known as the Molnupiravir, being named and is administered orally, and this drug work by inhibiting the replication of the coronavirus inside the body. An interim analysis had been done and out of that, there had been a phase 3 study which found out that 7.3% of patients who had been treated with Molnupiravir were hospitalized within 29 days.
And then if we look further, then we see the patients who received a placebo out of the 14.1% were hospitalized or died by day 29. No deaths, not even one, were reported among the patients who were given Molnupiravir, while eight deaths were reported in patients given the placebo.
“The news that we are getting of the efficacy of this particular antiviral is serious without a doubt very good news,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is the White House Chief medical advisor, said at a Covid briefing on Friday. “The company came, and then they briefed us last night about the matter. They also made sure that they had mentioned that they will be submitting their data to the FDA imminently for the approval for the drug.”
“The FDA is obviously going to take this seriously, and then they will look at the data. They are very consistent and in their usual, very efficient and effective way, they will be sure to examine the data as fast as they possibly can, and then it will be taken from there,” Fauci added.
