Finally, there's hope for long COVID treatment. Here's what it is
2 min read . Updated: 07 Mar 2023, 07:00 PM IST
PremiumEnsitrelvir can shorten symptoms of mild to moderate COVID-19 by about a day
Ensitrelvir, a new antiviral drug, has been shown to shorten symptoms of mild to moderate COVID-19 and moreover, it has the potential to prevent long COVID, study has shown. Here's all you need to know about the drug, can it really prevent long COVID and why the experts are still skeptical about it.
What is Ensitrelvir, drug that shorten COVID symptoms?
Ensitrelvir has been developed by Shionogi in Osaka, Japan and they claim that it shorten symptoms of mild to moderate COVID-19 by about a day and reduce the number of days people test positive for coronavirus.
The trial data was presented at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections.
The trial involved roughly 1,200 people and aimed to determine whether the drug could accelerate recovery. Participants who took 125-milligram ensitrelvir pills recovered from five specific symptoms, such as cough and low energy, about 24 hours earlier than those in the control group.
Moreover, those who took the 125-milligram dose tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 about 29 hours earlier than those who took a placebo.
Can ensitrelvir cure long COVID?
The study suggests that ensitrelvir has the potential to prevent long COVID, a condition characterized by symptoms that persist beyond the acute phase of COVID-19.
Participants who had a relatively high number of symptoms during the illness's early stages had a 14% risk of developing long COVID if they took the antiviral, compared with a 26% risk for similar participants in the placebo group.
However, scientists who were not involved with the study have raised doubts about the trial's design, pointing out, as reported by scientific journal Nature, it was not specifically intended to investigate the risk of long COVID. This means that the pre-trial research plan did not describe any methods for analyzing long COVID data.
Although preliminary evidence suggests that the antiviral Paxlovid might prevent long COVID, no drug has been conclusively shown to reduce the risk of the condition. Scientists say it is plausible that antivirals could prevent long COVID, but there is no consensus on what causes the condition. Some researchers believe that long COVID might be caused by the immune response to the virus rather than persistent virus.
Ensitrelvir was tested on people irrespective of their risk of severe COVID-19, which could have implications for its use in individuals at low risk. The drug is the third oral antiviral to be developed for COVID-19, after Paxlovid and molnupiravir. Both of these drugs target people at high risk of severe disease, whereas ensitrelvir was tested on people irrespective of their risk. The ensitrelvir trial data have not yet been peer-reviewed.