Second new ‘incredible’ Covid pill
HEALTH Secretary Sajid Javid yesterday hailed the “incredible” results of a pill that cuts the risk of hospitalisation or death from Covid by 89 per cent among vulnerable adults.
Wonder drug Paxlovid was developed by American giant Pfizer.
Its announcement yesterday came just 24 hours after the UK medicines regulator approved a similar treatment – molnupiravir – also from the US.
Paxlovid is intended for use soon after Covid symptoms develop in people at high risk of severe disease.
Mr Javid yesterday welcomed the development of the drug, adding: “If approved, this could be another significant weapon in our armoury to fight the virus alongside our vaccines and other treatments, including molnupiravir, which the UK was the first country in the world to approve this week.”
Pfizer said it stopped trials early after initial results were so positive.
Mr Javid said the UK has already ordered 250,000 courses of the treatment along with another
480,000 courses of molnupiravir from Merck Sharp and Dohme (MSD).
In clinical trials, molnupiravir – originally developed to treat flu – cut the risk of hospitalisation or death by about half.
The Pfizer drug, known as a “protease inhibitor”, is designed to block an enzyme the virus needs in order to multiply.
It is taken alongside a low dose of another antiviral pill called ritonavir, with three pills taken twice a day for five days.
The combination treatment works slightly differently to the MSD pill, which introduces errors into the genetic code of the virus.
Pfizer said it plans to submit interim trial results for its drug to US medicines regulator the FDA as part of the emergency use application it started last month.
Albert Bourla, the company’s chief executive, said the pill had “the potential to save patients’ lives, reduce the severity of Covid-19 infections, and eliminate up to nine out of 10 hospitalisations”.
Patients in the trial, which has not yet been published or verified, were elderly or had an underlying health condition that put them at higher risk of serious illness from Covid.
They all had mild to moderate symptoms of the disease.
None in the group taking the pill died, whereas 10 died in a group taking a placebo.
Dr Stephen Griffin, associate professor in the School of Medicine at the University of Leeds, said: “The success of these antivirals potentially marks a new era in our ability to prevent the severe consequences of Sars-CoV2 [coronavirus] infection, and is also a vital element for the care of clinically vulnerable people who may be unable to either receive or respond to vaccines.”
‘These antivirals mark a new era’
fund backed by Prince Charles was launched to help bring clean water to some of the world’s poorest people.
Backers hope the Resilient Water Accelerator will grow to £600million and transform the lives of 50 million people in Africa and Asia by 2030.
The UN Environment Programme called for the world’s peatlands to be restored and protected to cut global greenhouse gas emissions by 800 million tons a year – nearly double the UK’s annual total.
Peat not only stores carbon but is a vital wildlife habitat and reduces flooding by acting like a huge sponge.
With an eye on tomorrow’s theme, nature, the UK led 45 governments in promising to shift to greener agriculture.
Scrapping
To kickstart it, it offered £500million to protect more than 12 million acres of tropical rainforests across Africa, Asia and Latin America.
All this follows earlier pledges on scrapping coal, protecting forests, stopping funding overseas fossil fuels.The deals are piling up – though many are vague and not as watertight as we might hope.
As a result, there’s confusion about the impact of the show so far. The goal is to keep the global temperature rise since the Industrial Revolution to 1.5C.
Before the 2015 Paris Agreement, said COP26 president Alok Sharma, the world was on course for 6C. Pledges at Paris brought that down to 4C. Commitments in Glasgow, says one study, could bring it down to 1.8C.
The big catch, obviously, is whether these commitments will be honoured.
But US climate envoy John Kerry said he had never seen a COP with “a greater sense of urgency”.
He praised the “genuine progress” so far, but stressed “Job not done.This is a 10-year-long race.”
And then up popped climate guru and former US vice president Al Gore. “We have the urgency,” he told delegates. “We have the tools we need to solve the climate crisis.
“The only missing element is sufficient political will.”
Next week’s game of climate poker when negotiators nail down final agreements will reveal just how strong this global political will really is.