Australia’s drug regulator has for the first time approved oral treatments for Coronavirus, which should help address supply shortages of other treatments.
The drug regulator has provisionally approved two drugs, Paxlovid and Lagevrio.
This means that the treatment can be administered by health professionals in limited circumstances, but the manufacturers must submit further data as the drugs are used more widely.
The director of infectious diseases at Mater Health Services, associate professor Paul Griffin, stated Thursday that the treatments were great, safe and effective vaccines.
"We’ve got intravenously administered antivirals and monoclonal antibodies, that have certainly helped us. But what we’ve been missing right now is an oral therapy that changes the course of the Coronavirus illness," Griffin noted.
The vaccines stop Coronavirus from reproducing readily in cells of the body.
The medicines function in slightly different ways. Lagevrio causes errors during the viral replication process to the point where the virus is no longer viable and doesn’t survive that process while the Paxlovid blocks a critical enzyme – a protease – that the virus needs to replicate itself.
The treatment should ideally be administered as soon as possible after diagnosis and within five days of the onset of symptoms. It should be taken twice a day for five days.
The Australian government secured 500,000 treatments of Paxlovid and 300,000 of Lagevrio for supply during 2022, with the first deliveries being available in the coming weeks.
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