Covid Pfizer pill, efficacy and protection: what experts say

The first data on the Pzifer anti-Covid pill, which has been confirmed to be effective in avoiding the most serious consequences of the infection even in the case of the Omicron variant, are defined as “excellent news” by virologists and infectious diseases. The company reported that if Paxlovid is administered within 3 days of the onset of symptoms, the risk of hospitalization and death is reduced by 89%. “We hope to have this drug soon in Italy because it will be of great help in blocking the course of the disease. This antiviral pill is added to the monoclonals, but has the added advantage of being simple to use. Now it is necessary to determine who to give it to and above all, given the ease of use, who can prescribe it “, highlights at Adnkronos Salute Massimo Andreoni, head of infectious disease at the Tor Vergata Polyclinic in Rome and scientific director of the Italian Society of Infectious and Tropical Diseases (Simit).” The current monoclonal antibodies must be Administer in hospital by infusion – Andreoni recalls – Viral tablets could be easily managed even at home. A great help even in a phase of epidemic resurgence, which would avoid stress on hospital systems “. Pfizer’s anti-Covid pill is “interesting and well known is the mechanism that they managed to adapt to the action of the specific protein of the Sars-CoV-2 virus, so that’s it. I say better to be safe than sorry, but for those who are sick will be a fundamental element “, the opinion of the virologist Fabrizio Pregliasco, professor at the University of Milan. The new drug, says Adnkronos Salute,” has a completely different mechanism from the antiviral molnupiravir developed by Merck – specifies the expert – It is a protease inhibitor, something already known as regards, for example, antivirals against HIV: it blocks a fundamental enzyme, the protease, which is the enzyme that produces the proteins of the virus, therefore – tries to exemplify the virologist – it is as if he were putting a kind of grain in the mechanism of the virus, which breaks down the mechanism of replication “. Will we be able to get the drug in good time? “I believe – predicts the optimist Pregliasco – that we could have it available shortly”. According to Massimo Galli, former director of Infectious Diseases at the Sacco hospital in Milan, “if the experimental anti-Covid pill Pfizer keeps half of the promises that are foreseen, it could solve many problems for us. The mechanism by which these drugs act should guarantee us against all variants. of the virus currently known. There is no indication that one variant, including Omicron, will respond less than another to this medicine or the other that has been announced. ” “This is a drug that is given to people with initial infection who risk making a bad illness, not indiscriminately to everyone who has contracted the virus. At present it is to be expected that it will work. But at the moment I am alone. announcements. We await more concrete data “, concludes Galli. “The confirmation of the good results” of Pfizer’s Paxlovid antiviral pill “is good news and this antiviral will give us a hand in the management of Covid above all to treat the positives at home, patients who today instead come to the hospital”, he underlines for his part. Matteo Bassetti, director of the Infectious Diseases Clinic at the Policlinico San Martino hospital in Genoa.