People who took Pfizer’s COVID pill Paxlovid, reported that following the five-day treatment period, they would begin testing positive for Covid again and it has as a result failed in clinical trials.
Paxlovid has been hailed as one of the gold standard Covid treatments in the United States, with President Joe Biden mentioning it at this year’s State of the Union speech.
However, some people who took the drug to treat the virus have reported an unusual occurrence.
The Pfizer-developed medicine is thought to be highly effective at averting hospitalization or death in people who have already been infected with the virus, but some people who initially felt better after taking the drug are now experiencing symptoms again.
There have been several instances that following the five-day treatment period, patients would begin testing positive for Covid again.
Experts are baffled as to why this is happening, or what may be causing someone who appears to be healthy to become ill after contracting the same infection.
Some recipients of Pfizer’s antiviral Covid pill Paxlovid are reporting that their virus symptoms return after their course of the drug ends, and even that they start testing positive for the virus again
“We had three cases with the same pattern in the house,” said John Donoghue, 71, to the Boston Globe.
“The symptoms the second time were milder … in some ways, we feel that Paxlovid did its job. It took away the extreme symptoms of the first round and reduced them very quickly in all three cases.”
After contracting Covid, he, his wife, and his 95-year-old mother all started taking the drug.
After using Paxlovid, they began to feel better and even tested negative, until their symptoms and positive test status reappeared.
Dr. Paul Sax, an infectious disease expert at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, told the Globe that he had heard of the same thing happening to patients.”
“We continue to monitor data from our ongoing clinical studies and real-world evidence.” When approached for comment, Pfizer told DailyMail.com, “We have not seen any resistance to Paxlovid and remain very confident in its clinical effectiveness.”
At his 2022 State of the Union Address, President Joe Biden (pictured) touted Paxlovid, and said that he would make sure the drug was distributed to those who wanted it
In clinical studies, the drug lowered the chance of hospitalization or death by over 90% in two patient groups, according to the company.
Because of its successful trials, the drug’s arrival was greeted with excitement by health and pharmacy specialists all around the world.
In late 2021, the Food and Drug Administration granted it Emergency Use Authorization.
While the New York City-based company first had supply challenges, which slowed the launch, there is now allegedly an oversupply of the medicine available in the United States.
“It’s important to recognize treatments available today for COVID-19 have provided a real game-changer in the global efforts to halt the devastation of the pandemic,” the company wrote.
“Our trials and real-world evidence demonstrated that the treatment has the potential to save patients’ lives, reduce severity of infections and eliminate up to nine out of ten hospitalizations.”
Pfizer responded to the reports by mentioning its highly successful clinical trials for the drug, and that there is no evidence of resistance to Paxlovid
The drug’s popularity was so high that President Biden mentioned it in his State of the Union speech earlier this year, saying that any American who needed it would be able to get it.
However, some of the patients who did receive the medicine are now experiencing strange infections as a result of using it.
The likely mechanism at work for the Donoghues and others who have encountered similar phenomena, according to experts, is a game of cat and mouse.
”It’s literally that the Paxlovid is the cat, it suppresses the virus, and then when the cat’s gone, the mice come out to play,’ said Dr. Michael Charness, chief of staff at Veterans Affairs Boston.
“Paxlovid works really well while it’s there, and for many people, they can eliminate the virus in a single phase of infection,”
“But for some people, maybe because it takes a little longer to ramp up immunity, they can’t get rid of [all the virus] and the Paxlovid is no longer there to help.”
Although some Boston-area academics have launched inquiries, there are no trials, studies, or any specific scientific data that supports the existence of this type of viral bounce-back after someone takes Paxlovid.