Shortages to hit crucial Covid weapon

Oral medicines for Covid-19 are expected to be in short supply in Australia for the first few months after the drugs regulator gave them the green light.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration earlier this month granted provisional approval to Pfizer’s Paxlovid and Merck Sharp and Dohme’s Lagevrio for use in the country.

The federal government has ordered some 800,000 doses of the antiviral pills, with the first shipments due to arrive in coming weeks.

But Royal Australian College of General Practitioners President Karen Price said there was a worldwide shortage of the medicines which would contribute to supply constraints in Australia.

“They’re coming very soon. I would think within this month we’ll have some availability. But I think increased availability will be a few months down the track,” she told Sydney 2GB radio.

“Like all of these things in Covid, there’s going to be initial excitement and then there’s going to be frustration because they’re coming in small numbers.

“We are promised those larger numbers later on, but when is a good question.”

The medicines are not expected to become widely available until they are listed on the PBS and have their costs subsidised by the Australian government, Dr Price said.

“In terms of getting them on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) and going to the chemist to get them, that may be a few months down the track,” she said.

“They won’t be on the PBS, so as a GP we’ll be waiting to see. We have to go through the national stockpile, I understand, so there’ll be some rigmarole in trying to get them.”

Taken within five days of symptoms, the pills are designed to stop the virus becoming severe in mild and moderate cases.

Dr Price said the medicines wouldn’t be suitable for everyone and that they were “absolutely not” a substitute for the vaccine.

“It’ll be for those who are at really high risk of progressing onto severe Covid and that may mean people with other chronic medical conditions and so forth,” she said.

“These are really another backup for those people in particular who are unvaccinated. (But) getting vaccinated is the way to prevent yourself from getting severe Covid and ending up in hospital or worse.”

The provisional approval of the Paxlovid and Lagevrio in Australia is subject to certain strict conditions, such as the requirement for the sponsors to continue providing information to the TGA on longer-term efficacy and safety from ongoing clinical trials and post-market assessment.

Both drugs have received conditional marketing authorisation from the UK medicines regulator and emergency use authorisation from the US Food and Drug Administration.

Paxlovid was authorised for use by Health Canada earlier in January.