Boston researchers have found that Paxlovid is effective in reducing COVID hospitalization and death among a highly vaccinated population of adults who are 50-plus.
A new study out of Mass General Brigham confirmed that the antiviral drug Paxlovid (nirmatrelvir plus ritonavir) is associated with a 44% reduction in hospitalization or death in that highly vaccinated group.
Paxlovid was granted emergency use authorization for treating COVID last December. In clinical trials, the antiviral drug was associated with an 88% reduction in hospitalization or death among high-risk, unvaccinated individuals with COVID. However, little was known at the time about whether Paxlovid could help vaccinated individuals.
The Mass General Brigham results suggest that Paxlovid can significantly benefit vaccinated patients diagnosed with COVID in the outpatient setting, and can help efforts to reduce COVID hospitalizations during a projected winter surge.
“These data have been helpful as we prepare for a winter surge,” said Scott Dryden-Peterson, medical director of Mass General Brigham’s COVID outpatient therapy. “Our findings suggest that Paxlovid can save lives, and it can have a real impact on keeping hospital beds available for the treatment of other conditions.
“The opportunity to prevent COVID-19 hospitalizations is not there unless people know that they’re positive, so we have ongoing efforts to do outreach, make testing available, and communicate to the highest-risk patients that they may benefit from Paxlovid or another antiviral treatment option,” Dryden-Peterson added.
Overall, patients in this study had high levels of prior immunity and, therefore, lower risks of severe disease. However, among the small minority of patients with fewer than three vaccine doses, there was an 81% reduction in hospitalization, a rate comparable to the original trial.
No hospitalizations (69 total) in those treated with Paxlovid were attributed to a “rebound syndrome” that has been described in some patients after their symptoms appear to initially resolve after using the antiviral.
In the coming months, the researchers expect that Paxlovid will be more important in the fight against COVID because monoclonal antibody therapies are no longer effective against the circulating virus strains.
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