First Oral Medication Trial for Treating COVID-19 Starts

Clinical trial on oral medication named Molunpiravir starts for treating COVID-19. In an interview with CNN Philippines’, Dr. Joel Santiaguel, clinical investigator, said they are enrolling 20 more mild to moderate COVID-19 patients from Philippines.

This anti-viral drug is manufactured by Merck & Co. that can potentially treat mild to moderate cases of COVID-19. “If it works we would expect those patients who are infected would recover faster because that is the mechanism of action of this drug.

That it inserts itself into the virus and triggers multiple errors and catastrophic errors inside the virus that it would not be able to replicate and eventually, all of it will be eliminated so that the symptoms and the infection would not progress and the patient would recover in a few days,” Santiaguel explained.

15 people have already joined. All of them were unvaccinated, have comorbidities, and are staying at home.

None of the patients deteriorated or had worsening symptoms. They are also expected to recover faster and that the drug has no significant side effects.

Santiaguel said: “From its mechanism of action, we would expect that it would have that potential. We still don’t have sufficient data but from the early results and from its mechanism of action we would expect that it would work against the different variants.”

He said they expect to meet the target number of patients by end of September. In three to six months, data and results will be finalized and released, he added.

Manufacturers are hoping to get approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration after the completion of trials, followed by regulators from other countries like the Philippines, for molnupiravir to eventually become available in the market, Santiaguel said.



Source-Medindia