SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS RADIO) – Stanford Medicine is beginning a clinical trial using Paxlovid to treat long COVID-19.
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Paxlovid has become a go-to treatment for the effects of COVID-19 upon initial infection, especially for those high-risk. It has been the subject of multiple clinical trials in this capacity by now, and the results have been quite significant.
"It decreased the risk of hospitalization or death by almost 88%," said Dr. Upinder Singh, an infectious diseases professor at Stanford Medicine and one of the principal investigators on the clinical trial on KCBS Radio's "Ask an Expert" on Friday with Melissa Culross.
And those results have mirrored real life. But its ability to treat long COVID-19 has yet to be determined.
"A large percentage of people, unfortunately, do get long COVID-19 – and we define that as continued or new symptoms that do come on more than three months after having had COVID-19," she said.
Current data has the proportion of people suffering from this from anywhere between 5% and 30%.
Right now, there isn’t a specific treatment for long COVID-19. The recommendations are usually to get a lot of rest, eat well, and exercise.
But there is no medical option available.
"There's some potential observational data that in people that are treated with Paxlovid during acute COVID-19 that they have less symptoms in the long run," said Singh.
"If we treat somebody with long COVID-19 symptoms with Paxlovid – will their symptoms of long COVID-19 increase," said Singh.
The trial will look at people suffering from moderate to severe long COVID-19 symptoms and track their progress over time.
It's still unclear what exactly causes long COVID-19 and the symptoms are incredibly diverse, making treatment a difficult problem.
"One of the hypotheses is that there is some virus persisting somewhere in the body or a portion of the virus, maybe not active virus, but enough that it's activating the immune system or causing some other issues," she said.
With that hypothesis in mind, that’s what antiviral treatments like Paxlovid are exploring.
But for any new drug or treatment coming out for any disease or ailment, there needs to be a placebo control group trial.
And that's the trial the group at Stanford Medicine is doing – to determine the drug actually does what they think it might, and that it's safe.
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