NEW YORK – A new possible medication to treat coronavirus-positive patients may be enough to put the pandemic on its head. Dr Marc Siegel unveiled on Sunday “Fox & Friends weekend. “
First-phase testing of the experiment COVID-19 pill called Molnupiravir, by Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, has shown promising signs of effectiveness in reducing the virus in patients.
“It could be the holy grail about this, because it has just been studied in phase two trials and it has literally stopped the virus in its tracks,” he explained. “And no virus was found that was studied in the patients.”
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The drug would function as a five-day home treatment, similar to Tamiflu, to prevent the virus from reproducing before causing major damage. Siegel said the therapeutic treatment could come within four to five months.
The doctor said that although only 182 patients had been studied so far, the pill could still be ‘very promising’ to a thousand people.
“This could be the future once the vaccine really takes control of the pandemic and we only start to see isolated cases,” he said. “By that time, this remedy may be ready and may be in the next few months.”
Siegel predicted that by the summer the US would be free of the coronavirus pandemic, which would make the treatment of Molnupiravir ‘very useful’ for the management of isolated cases.
“This is the very first pill we have, and we can use it in our armament against COVID as a therapist,” he said.
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