Covid pill you take at home

A ‘GAME-CHANGING’ antiviral pill halves the risk of being hospitalised with Covid-19 and slashes death rates, scientists revealed yesterday.

The tablet, called molnupiravir, is hoped to be available in the coming months for those with the virus to take at home.

It is the first antiviral pill for Covid, meaning patients could be treated without the need for infusions or injections. It marks a landmark change in how the pandemic is tackled.

In a trial of 775 patients with mild to moderate Covid, who were at risk of becoming more severely ill, just 7% of those given the drug were hospitalised or died. That compared with 14% of patients given a dummy pill – and the trial was so successful it was stopped early.

Yesterday Eddie Gray, chairman of Britain’s Antivirals Taskforce hinted that molnupiravir could be rolled out there by the end of the year.

The results of the trial were released by Ridgeback Biotherapeutics and MSD, an arm of US pharmaceutical giant Merck.

Merck’s vice-president of infectious disease, Dr Daria Hazuda, said: ‘It is the first oral antiviral to have shown efficacy in the outpatient setting for Covid’ adding that there were eight deaths in the trial’s placebo group and none in the molnupiravir

group. ‘I look at that, I think that’s game-changing,’ she said.

The antiviral works by incorporating genetic errors into the coronavirus so that it is less able to replicate and spread through someone’s body.

Another antiviral called favipiravir, which is licensed to treat flu in Japan, is being tested to find treatments for people at risk of serious Covid. Pfizer is testing a rival preventive antiviral pill.