Pfizer announced Friday that a recent large, late-stage trial found that its COVID-19 antiviral pill, Paxlovid, failed at preventing symptomatic infection of people living with a person who has the disease.
The trial enrolled 2,957 participants aged 18 and older who live in the same household as another person who has COVID-19 with symptoms. They were given either Paxlovid or a placebo twice daily for five or 10 days.
Researchers reported that those who took Paxlovid for 5 days were 32 percent less likely to become infected compared to the placebo group. People who took Paxlovid for 10 days were 37 percent less likely to get infected. The results were not statistically significant, however, which means it could possibly be due to chance.
“These results … were not statistically significant and, as such, the primary endpoint of reducing the risk of confirmed and symptomatic COVID-19 infection in adults who had been exposed to the virus through a household contact was not met,” the company said in a release.
“While we are disappointed in the outcome of this particular study, these results do not impact the strong efficacy and safety data we’ve observed in our earlier trial for the treatment of COVID-19 patients at high risk of developing severe illness,” Pfizer Chief Executive Albert Bourla said in a statement.
Paxlovid consists of two different antiviral drugs—nirmatrelvir and ritonavir. It is currently approved or authorized for conditional or emergency use in more than 60 countries to treat COVID-19 patients at high risk of severe illness.
According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), ritonavir “may cause liver damage” and so “caution should be exercised when giving Paxlovid to patients with preexisting liver diseases, liver enzyme abnormalities or liver inflammation.”
The FDA also said that using Paxlovid in people with uncontrolled or undiagnosed HIV-1 infection “may lead to HIV-1 drug resistance.”
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Pfizer’s announcement comes as researchers at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) are planning to investigate how and why some people who have taken a five-day course of Paxlovid experience a repeat of COVID-19, reported Bloomberg.
Clifford Lane, deputy director for clinical research at NIAID, told the outlet that the issue is “a pretty urgent thing for us to get a handle on.” He said the agency is discussing with scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) about carrying out a number of possible epidemiological and clinical studies to learn about these rebound cases.
Researchers at the VA Boston Healthcare System earlier this week published a preprint (pdf) about a case study of a 71-year-old man who quickly recovered from COVID-19 after taking Paxlovid, only to have a relapse of symptoms and an increase in viral levels just nine days after his first COVID-19 positive test. The symptoms and viral levels resolved days later. The COVID-19 rebound case related to Paxlovid is the first to be documented in medical literature.
Paul Sax, a Harvard Medical School professor and the clinical director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, told Bloomberg that if people have symptoms that worsen after taking Paxlovid, “it’s probably still COVID.”
Sax on April 25 had reported about a rebound of COVID-19 in one of his HIV patients after the person took Paxlovid.
Image by Kches16414, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Article cross-posted from our premium news partners at The Epoch Times with contributions from Reuters.
Will America-First News Outlets Make it to 2023?
Things are looking grim for conservative and populist news sites.
There’s something happening behind the scenes at several popular conservative news outlets. 2021 was bad, but 2022 is proving to be disastrous for news sites that aren’t “playing ball” with the corporate media narrative. It’s being said that advertisers are cracking down, forcing some of the biggest ad networks like Google and Yahoo to pull their inventory from conservative outlets. This has had two major effects. First, it has cooled most conservative outlets from discussing “taboo” topics like Pandemic Panic Theater, voter fraud, or The Great Reset. Second, it has isolated those ad networks that aren’t playing ball.
Certain topics are anathema for most ad networks. Speaking out against vaccines or vaccine mandates is a certain path to being demonetized. Highlighting voter fraud in the 2020 and future elections is another instant advertising death penalty. Throw in truthful stories about climate change hysteria, Critical Race Theory, and the border crisis and it’s easy to understand how difficult it is for America-First news outlets to spread the facts, share conservative opinions, and still pay the bills.
Without naming names, I have been told of several news outlets who have been forced to either consolidate with larger organizations or who have backed down on covering certain topics out of fear of being “canceled” by the ad networks. I get it. This is a business for many of us and it’s not very profitable. Those of us who do this for a living are often barely squeaking by, so loss of additional revenue can often mean being forced to make cuts. That means not being able to cover the topics properly. Its a Catch-22: Tell the truth and lose the money necessary to keep telling the truth, or avoid the truth and make enough money to survive. Those who have chosen survival simply aren’t able to spread the truth properly.
We will never avoid the truth. The Lord will provide if it is His will. Our job is simply to share the facts, spread the Gospel, and educate as many Americans as possible while exposing the forces of evil.
To those who have the means, we ask that you please donate. We have options available now, but there is no telling when those options will cancel us. We have our GivingFuel page. There have been many who have been canceled by PayPal, but for now it’s still an option. Your generosity is what keeps these sites running and allows us to get the truth to the masses. We’ve had great success in growing but we know we can do more with your assistance.
Thank you, and God Bless!
JD Rucker