{"id":5746,"date":"2024-01-23T13:34:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-23T19:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=5746"},"modified":"2024-01-23T13:34:03","modified_gmt":"2024-01-23T19:34:03","slug":"paxlovid-helps-prevent-severe-illness-from-covid-why-dont-more-people-take-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2024\/01\/23\/paxlovid-helps-prevent-severe-illness-from-covid-why-dont-more-people-take-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Paxlovid helps prevent severe illness from COVID. Why don’t more people take it?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Yahoo News<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the current COVID-19 death toll<\/a> in the U.S. at more than 1.1 million and new evidence that COVID infections can damage<\/a> the brain, heart and lungs, it’s clear that the disease is more than \u201cjust a bad cold.\u201d Paxlovid, which is a combination of two drugs (nirmatrelvir and ritonavir), can lower the risk of severe symptoms and reduce hospitalizations. But not enough people are offered the drug when they test positive. A recent study<\/a> by the National Institutes of Health found that only 15% of people who were eligible for the drug took it. Here’s what you need to know about Paxlovid, including who should take it and when.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How does Paxlovid work?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Paxlovid is an antiviral therapy that helps your body fight off COVID-19 faster and more effectively. In one clinical trial,<\/a> Paxlovid was 89% effective in reducing hospitalization and death in patients who were not vaccinated and were at risk for severe disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPaxlovid is made up of two separate medications \u2014 nirmatrelvir and ritonavir \u2014 both in pill form,\u201d Dr. Alexander Fortenko<\/a>, an emergency medicine physician with Weill Cornell Medicine, tells Yahoo Life. \u201cNirmatrelvir is a drug that inhibits the production of an enzyme that the COVID-19 virus needs to reproduce. The other pill, ritonavir, slows down how quickly nirmatrelvir is broken down by the liver, essentially providing a boost for it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When should you take Paxlovid? Is there anyone who shouldn’t take it?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Timing matters when it comes to taking Paxlovid. \u201cNirmatrelvir\/ritonavir has to be started within the first five days of symptoms, and it has to be prescribed by a doctor,\u201d Dr. Linda Yancey<\/a>, director of infection prevention at the Memorial Hermann Health System in Houston, tells Yahoo Life. \u201cIf you would like to take the medication, call your health care provider right away, as soon as you feel sick and test positive for COVID-19.\u201d The course involves taking three pills twice a day for five days, and patients need to finish the prescription even if they feel better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPaxlovid is for the treatment of adult and pediatric patients \u2014 12 years of age and older weighing at least 88 pounds \u2014 with mild to moderate COVID-19 and who are at high risk for getting severe COVID-19, including hospitalization or death,\u201d Hai Tran<\/a>, a clinical pharmacist and director of Drug Use Policy at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, tells Yahoo Life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the CDC<\/a>, people with a high risk of severe disease include older adults, people with other health conditions such as obesity, diabetes and cancer, people with disabilities and certain racial minorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, not everyone can take Paxlovid. It\u2019s not recommended for people with a low risk of severe disease, and it should not be taken by people with allergies to any of its ingredients, people on certain medications such as statins and Viagra, people who are pregnant or breastfeeding and those with liver or kidney disease.<\/p>\noGAnwCfa QlUaVpqQJaMf <\/a><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yahoo News With the current COVID-19 death toll in the U.S. at more than 1.1 million and new evidence that COVID infections can damage the brain, heart and lungs, it’s clear that the disease is more than \u201cjust a bad cold.\u201d Paxlovid, which is a combination of two drugs (nirmatrelvir and ritonavir), can lower the risk of severe symptoms […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-covid-therapies"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5746"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5747,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5746\/revisions\/5747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}