The condition drew international attention last week when US President Joe Biden tested positive for the virus six days after testing negative following his first bout with the disease.
White House Covid response coordinator Dr Ashish Jha said clinical data shows the rate of rebound infections is low and noted that even those who suffer from them are still generally protected from serious illness.
Biden is not the only high profile patient to develop the disease. The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, also experienced the Covid-19 rebound. Unlike Biden, his symptoms worsened when they returned from treatment with Paxlovid, and his doctors prescribed further treatment with the drug.
Experts have called for more systematic research into rebound cases to understand who is most at risk and whether the standard five-day course of Paxlovid needs to be extended to prevent it.
The CDC said most cases of rebound involve mild disease and that Paxlovid “continues to be recommended for the early-stage treatment of mild to moderate COVID-19 in people at high risk for progression to severe disease.” “.
Pfizer, the company that makes Paxlovid, said its studies showed that rebounds were rare and occurred in both people taking the drug and those taking a placebo pill. Because investigators noted the phenomenon in both groups, the company does not believe it is drug-related.
YOU ASKED. WE ANSWERED.
Q: How does Paxlovid work?
The drug suppresses the coronavirus, blocking an enzyme that helps it reproduce inside the body.
As with all antivirals, treatment is thought to work best if started within five days of the first symptoms appearing.
Clinical trials of Paxlovid have shown that it reduces the risk of hospitalization and death by 88% when given within five days of the onset of symptoms.
READINGS OF THE WEEK
Most US public schools plan to keep masks optional for start of class
Most of the largest public school districts in the United States do not require masks for the new school year, making masking optional when students return to class and the highly transmissible BA.5 subvariant spreads.
Dr Sanjay Gupta: Are we making the same mistakes?
Screening for monkeypox, once very limited, is now more available, but underutilized. The demand for vaccines exceeds the supply. There are nearly 2 million courses of the highly effective antiviral TPOXX sitting in strategic national stockpile, but many healthcare providers are still struggling to get the drugs to their patients.
Currently, only 336,710 doses have been shipped to the states. Ordering has just started for approximately 800,000 additional doses. That rarity has created long lines in monkeypox hotspots like New York, which has the highest number of cases in the country.
Updated Covid-19 booster shots could be available in September
The US Food and Drug Administration advised vaccine makers in June to update boosters to add an Omicron BA.4/5 component and create a bivalent booster that would work for two different strains.
“Pfizer and Moderna have indicated that they expect the modified vaccines to be available as early as September,” an FDA spokesperson said.
SUPERIOR COUNCIL
Many children will soon return to school, while coronavirus cases are still high.
