US: COVID-19 pills low in supply as Omicron surge pushes hospitalisations to record high

As the ‘highly mutated’ Omicron has become the dominant strain in the US with hospitalisations reaching to a record high, the two brand-new COVID-19 pills that were intended to fight against the outbreak in the nation are low in supply. Last month, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the Pfizer's pill Paxlovid and Mercks' molnupiravir, relying on trials that showed they reduced the risk of serious illness and death when taken soon after COVID-19 symptoms appeared. One of the reasons behind the low supply is that manufacturing and production are still ramping up, and the production of the drugs will take somewhere between five to eight months, AP reported.  

Even though the supply of the pills is expected to improve in the upcoming months, doctors are currently asking for the tablets, not only because Omicron is driving a spike in COVID cases, but also because the two antibody medications that were formerly the go-to therapies do not function well against the variant. Further, pills as well as other COVID-19 medications, which are rationed and reserved, are given mostly to the highest-risk patients. 

FDA approved the two pills from Pfizer and Merck in last month 

Paxlovid and molnupiravir are the first COVID-19 medicines that patients may take at home, potentially reducing hospitalisations. However, the US did not make the same large-scale purchases in advance as it did with COVID-19 vaccinations. 

Furthermore, Pfizer's Paxlovid, is significantly superior to Merck's, but the firm estimates that it will only be able to offer roughly 250,000 treatment courses by the end of this month as it takes six to eight months to develop. In addition to this, COVID-19 coordinator of the White house Jeff Zients stated this week that the US government worked with Pfizer to ramp up the pill's production by several months and that authorities are continuing to work with the firm to find methods to increase manufacturing. 

The United States has placed an order for enough Paxlovid to serve 20 million patients, but the first 10 million will not arrive until June. Molnupiravir, Merck's medication, was manufactured in larger quantities in advance. Even though manufacturing takes six months, the manufacturer claims it can be sped up to five months if required. Merck said it has shipped 900,000 courses of the medicine and expects to supply the remaining 3 million by the end of this month.  The US government has been supplying enough Pfizer medicines to states to treat 164,000 patients since last month. 

(Image: AP)