Paxlovid may help some people with long COVID, says study

An extended course of antiviral medication Paxlovid may benefit some patients with long COVID, suggests a new study. A case series by UC San Francisco researchers hints that the antiviral medication would give hope to those struggling with debilitating symptoms.According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately 17.6 million Americans, or 1 in 13 adults, have long COVID-19 symptoms. Affected people experience symptoms for months or even years after the initial COVID-19 infection. These symptoms range from brain fog and headaches to respiratory and cardiovascular issues. “We are about five years into the pandemic, and yet there are not yet any federally-approved treatments for long Covid. This is not a silver bullet, but it may help a lot of people in a meaningful way,” Alison Cohen, assistant professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at UCSF and the first author of the paper said in a statement. The study is published in the Nature publication Communications Medicine.“If we’ve learned one thing over the last four years, it’s that long Covid is complex, and figuring out why some people benefit so remarkably from antiviral treatment while others don’t is one of the most important questions for the field. We are going to need to embrace that complexity to get answers for the millions of people suffering from this condition,” co-author and principal investigator Michael Peluso said.(Pic courtesy: iStock)