New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
We soon may take a pill if we get COVID
Yale doctor says it’s no substitute for vaccination
NEW HAVEN — A pill to treat COVID-19 could be on its way and looks like it may keep people who get the disease from serious illness, a Yale New Haven Health infectious disease expert said Monday.
Dr. Richard Martinello, YNHH medical director for infection prevention, said Merck’s oral drug, molnupiravir, “does look very effective and of course what they looked at for the data … so far is how it kept people out of the hospital and [from] death.”
Merck reported Friday that in its clinical trials the treatment reduced hospitalizations and deaths by half, 7.3 percent vs. 14.1 percent of those who took a placebo, when given within five days of showing symptoms. There were no deaths among those who received the drug after 30 days of the trial but eight among those on placebo.
The results were so strong the study was ended early. Merck said the drug was shown to be effective against the gamma, delta and mu variants.
Martinello said, however, people should not fail to get vaccinated.
“We don’t know when this is going to come out and it’s not a replacement for vaccination,” he said. “Preventing disease is always better than treating the disease.”
It will be available, however, for vaccinated people who then come down with breakthrough cases of COVID, he said.
Molnupiravir is not new, Martinello said.
“It has actually been worked on for a long time,” he said. “We’ve been hearing rumblings about this drug for many months now.”
“A number of years ago it was actually being developed as a drug that could be used for hepatitis C. It never really worked out,” Martinello said. “It was looked at against flu and similar viruses and actually found to be pretty effective.”
He said, though, that little is known beyond what Merck has issued in its press release.
“The laboratory data, including animal data, looked really good and it’s nice to see positive results,” he said. “It will be important to see that data or similar data published in a medical journal.”
He said data on safety will be important to understand.
Other antiviral medications, such as remdesivir, “have some benefit but, as people have said, they’re not home runs,” Martinello said. They also require injection.
It’s not certain that Merck’s drug will be more effective, but “it does have promise to be and especially as its an oral drug it could potentially change how we manage COVID,” he said.
Merck said it will ask the Food and Drug Administration for authorization within days, but Martinello said that approval “can take some time, months and likely many months before this becomes available.”
The study tracked 775 adults with mild to moderate COVID-19 who were considered at high risk for serious illness because of health problems such as obesity, diabetes or heart disease.
Patients take four pills twice a day for five days. Side effects were reported by both groups in the
Merck trial, but they were slightly more common among those who received a placebo. The company did not specify the problems.