SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS RADIO) – Despite the benefits of Paxlovid, health experts are explaining why the antiviral drug may not be the best choice for every COVID-19 patient.
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Dr. Amesh Adalja, Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told KCBS Radio's "Ask An Expert" Paxlovid is often ineffective in reducing the disease in younger individuals.
"Not everyone is going to benefit from Paxlovid and some of the studies have shown that there's less of a benefit in lower risk people, or basically no benefit," he said. "It makes sense because if you're an 18-year-old kid, your risk of severe disease is very, very, very low, so how can you actually reduce it lower with an antiviral?"
Adalja said this outcome is not surprising. "We haven't seen Paxlovid be effective at reducing severe disease in younger individuals and those without risk factors because they already have a very low risk," he explained.
Clearing up some concerns, Adalja reassured that Paxlovid will not have an adverse effect in coronavirus patients. "There's not a safety concern," the John Hopkins doctor said. "Paxlovid has some side effects like diarrhea and this taste that patients describe as being really horrible, but it doesn’t have any major side effects that I would worry about."
Health experts are now studying Paxlovid and other antivirals to discover their "secondary outcomes."
"They are doing studies to look at what we would call 'lesser outcomes' in terms of — do people get better faster or does their fever go away faster, do their symptoms go down quicker — and I think that will make a different type of argument for Paxlovid, but right now those studies are still ongoing and it’s unclear whether we’ll see that benefit," Adalja said.
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