Supply shortages and limits on research leave low- and middle-income countries struggling to access Pfizer’s COVID-19 antiviral.
Credit: Kenny Mbala/DNDi
But Pfizer’s decision has dismayed public-health advocates. DNDi’s inability to obtain medicine for clinical trials compounds ongoing inequities in access to vaccines and treatments, including Paxlovid, in low- and middle-income countries, says Brook Baker, a law professor at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, who specializes in global access to medicines and vaccines. “This is a trial in a population that needs to be studied,” he says.
While the world waits for Paxlovid, some countries are leaning on another antiviral called molnupiravir , authorized by the FDA at the end of last year. But the ANTICOV trial has decided against including molnupiravir for now, says Nathalie Strub-Wourgaft, director of the COVID-19 response at DNDi in Geneva. The drug, supplies of which are also limited, reduced hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 by only about 30% when given to adults at high risk for severe disease.
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