Antiviral pills can help prevent severe COVID. Some are available in the Fort Worth area
A limited supply of COVID-19 antiviral medications are available in Fort Worth-area pharmacies, a small step toward preventing local patients from getting seriously ill from COVID-19.
The Food and Drug Administration authorized two new drugs — Paxlovid and Molnupiravir — for use in the U.S. last month, and they were shipped to Texas and then distributed to local pharmacies starting the week of Dec. 27.
It’s not known exactly how many pills were allocated to Texas and then distributed to local pharmacies. Patients can only get access to the drugs if they get a prescription from a health care provider, and they can only be given to COVID-19 patients early in the illness, said Dr. Priya Subramanian, the infectious disease medical director at Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Hurst-Euless-Bedford.
“In general, antivirals help to block or mitigate the viral replication process,” Subramanian said. “The earlier given, the better it works.”
When a virus enters the human body, it looks for a host cell and then begins replicating, Subramanian said. Antivirals work by trying to stop the replication process. One of the best known and most widely used antivirals in the U.S. is Tamiflu, the antiviral drug that attacks the flu virus.
Patients have to start taking COVID antiviral pills within five days after their symptoms begin, Subramanian said, otherwise it will be too far along in the replication process for the drugs to work.
“This is more for people who have mild to moderate symptoms,” she said. “We don’t want to wait for people to have oxygen numbers dropping, or who are having trouble breathing.”
The goal, she said, is to keep patients out of the hospital in the first place.
People who want a prescription for one of the new drugs will only be able to get one from a health care worker who can prescribe medications. Physicians or other prescribers have to make sure patients don’t take drugs that would react poorly with the COVID pills, Subramanian said.
Subramanian recommended patients who think they have the virus to first get tested, because you can’t get a prescription without a positive test result. For patients who test positive, she recommended reaching out to their doctor early so the doctor could evaluate whether the drugs would be safe and effective.
The state health department distributed the pills to five pharmacies in Tarrant County, according to a map of distribution sites in the state. It’s unknown when a new shipment of pills will be sent to the states, but the manufacturers of Paxlovid and Molnupiravir have said production will increase in the coming months.
Once they are widely available, these drugs could help prevent the most vulnerable people from getting seriously sick and dying from the coronavirus.
Before these drugs were available, the only antiviral approved for use against the coronavirus was Remdesivir, a drug that is given through an IV, and is more complicated to administer to patients than simply prescribing pills that are distributed by a pharmacy. Both Paxlovid and Molnupiravir pills are taken over the course of five days.
But while the drugs could help prevent people from getting seriously ill and dying from COVID-19, the best strategy is still prevention, Subramanian said. And the best way to prevent illness is getting vaccinated.
“The people who are hospitalized right now who are really, really sick, are the ones who are not vaccinated,” she said. “That’s the single most efficient preventative strategy we have right now.”
This story was originally published January 4, 2022 at 5:18 PM.
