COVID-19: How Significant Are the Anti-viral Oral Pills for Treatment?

<div>The world for the past few months has been speaking a lot on COVID vaccines and how it is our way out of this pandemic. But it will be a long time before the entire world is vaccinated. So what do we do to prevent severe symptoms or hospitalisation till then?<br> <br> </div> <div>A new anti-viral pill for COVID-19 treatment from pharma giants Merck and Pfizer Inc, aims to reduce the risk of hospitalisation and even death. These new drugs – Merck’s Molnupiravir and Pfizer’s Paxlovid – are currently in their clinical trials but have shown promising results, especially the latter, which claims to reduce the risk of hospitalisation by 89 percent.<br> <br> And countries have already started recognising the significance of these pills, with the United Kingdom being the first country to approve Molnupiravir and <a href="https://www.thequint.com/coronavirus/faq/pill-for-coronavirus-molnupiravir-approved-in-uk-who-can-take-it#read-more">purchased nearly half a million courses</a>.<br> <br> </div> <div>So what are these new drugs exactly? How do they work and more importantly, are they safe?<br> <br> <br> <strong>Host and Producer: </strong>Himmat Shaligram</div> <div> <strong>Guest: </strong>Vaishali Sood, The Quint’s<strong> </strong>Health Editor and Dr Rakesh Mishra, the former Director of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and an Advisor to CEBM.</div> <div><br> </div> <div><br> </div> <div> <strong>Editor:</strong> Shelly Walia</div> <div><br> </div> <div> <strong>Music:</strong> Big Bang Fuzz</div> <div><br> </div> <div><strong>Listen to The Big Story podcast on:</strong></div> <div><br> </div> <div>Apple: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/redirect?q=https%3A%2F%2Fapple.co%2F2AYdLIl&amp;redir_token=G9sQMbbppKv-LEFD29gDyTmPMzt8MTU3MTM4MDU5NkAxNTcxMjk0MTk2&amp;v=xkpX1V6aUFo&amp;event=video_description">https://apple.co/2AYdLIl</a> </div> <div>Saavn: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/redirect?q=http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F2oix78C&amp;redir_token=G9sQMbbppKv-LEFD29gDyTmPMzt8MTU