White House Moves to Make COVID-19 Antiviral Pills More Widely Available

TUESDAY, April 26, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Plans to nearly double the number of pharmacies and other locations that carry the antiviral pill Paxlovid for COVID-19 were announced Tuesday by the Biden administration.
Demand for the drug has risen in recent weeks along with COVID-19 cases, but many Americans have said they cannot find a doctor to prescribe the drug, or a pharmacy that has it, when they get COVID-19, The Washington Post reported. The White House said it plans to increase the number of pharmacies, hospitals, community health clinics, and urgent care centers that carry Paxlovid from 20,000 to 40,000 in the coming weeks.
Another Biden administration move to increase availability of the Pfizer pill is more "test-to-treat" programs in pharmacies and clinics, where people will be given five days worth of the medication if they test positive for COVID-19, The Post reported.
Paxlovid was authorized by federal regulators late last year and the Biden administration has committed to buy 20 million treatment courses.
One reason that patients are having trouble obtaining the drug is confusion and inconsistency among doctors over prescribing the drug, according to The Post. Paxlovid was originally authorized for patients at high risk for severe COVID-19 and was in short supply during the omicron surge. Studies have shown that Paxlovid can cut the risk for hospitalization or death by about 90 percent when patients start taking it within three to five days of the onset of COVID-19 symptoms.
The drug has been in high demand as COVID-19 cases once again rise, driven by the highly transmissible omicron subvariant BA.2. The seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases was 47,029 on Monday, up from about 38,000 one week prior, even as many new infections go unreported as more Americans turn to home test kits, The Post reported.
Related Posts
When College Students Cut Back on Social Media, They Got Happier: Study
TUESDAY, June 20, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- Cutting back social media to a spare...
Lipid Profiles Altered in People With Severe Mental Illness
WEDNESDAY, Feb. 22, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- Lipid profiles are reproducibly...
Doctors Pulled Live Worm From Australian Woman’s Brain
TUESDAY, Aug. 29, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- Doctors plucked a wriggling roundworm...
AHA News: US-Born Hispanic People May Be More Vulnerable to Chronic Diseases Than Foreign-Born Counterparts
FRIDAY, March 3, 2023 (American Heart Association News) -- Hispanic people born...