THE Government Pharmaceutical Organisation has selected a quality source for the procurement of an additional 10 million molnupiravir pills to treat Covid-19 patients, TV Channel 7 said this evening (Mar. 27).
This move was made at the prompting of the Public Health Ministry to quickly get more of this antiviral medication for use in the treatment of people over 60 years of age who have either not been vaccinated or only got one jab to reduce the risk of developing severe symptoms.
Two million molnupiravir pills produced by Merck arrived last week, with this being enough for 50,000 treatment courses.
The Government Pharmaceutical Organisation said it is currently negotiating the delivery and the price with the manufacturer ready to ship the first lot of 10 million pills two weeks after the signing of the contract.
Based on positive results in placebo-controlled double-blind randomised clinical trials, molnupiravir was approved for medical use in the United Kingdom in November 2021.
In December 2021, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted an emergency use authorisation (EUA) to molnupiravir for use in certain populations where other treatments are not feasible. The emergency use authorisation was only narrowly approved (13-10) because of questions regarding efficacy and concerns that molnupiravir’s mutagenic effects could create new variants that evade immunity and prolong the Covid-19 pandemic, Wikipedia said.
Molnupiravir is indicated for the treatment of mild-to-moderate coronavirus disease in adults with positive results of direct SARS-CoV-2 viral testing, and who are at high risk for progression to severe Covid-19.
The ministry said this morning that there were 25,821 Covid cases and 84 deaths in Thailand over the past 24 hours. This raised the cumulative confirmed total since Jan. 1 to 1,305,650 and since the start of the pandemic 3,534,085.
Today’s 84 fatalities raised the death toll to 24,799.
Another 24,066 patients were cured taking total recoversie since Jan. 1 to 1,083,856 while 251,936 patients are still undergoing treatment.
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Some molnupiravir pills. Photos: NNT
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