COVID-19

Health Canada has authorized the combination of two antiviral drugs, nirmatrelvir and ritonavir (brand name PAXLOVIDTM), to treat adults with mild to moderate COVID-19 who are at high risk of progressing to serious disease, including hospitalization or death. The active ingredient nirmatrelvir in PAXLOVIDTM works by stopping the virus from replicating.

Pfizer Inc shared results from multiple studies demonstrating that the in vitro efficacy of nirmatrelvir, the active main protease (Mpro) inhibitor of PAXLOVID (nirmatrelvir [PF-07321332] tablets and ritonavir tablets), is maintained against the SARS-CoV-2 variant Omicron. Taken together, these in vitro studies suggest that PAXLOVID has the potential to maintain plasma concentrations many-fold times higher than the amount required to prevent Omicron from replicating in cells.

The independent clinical trial, conducted by Locus Medicus in Athens, Greece, prospectively tested 330 patients with symptomatic and asymptomatic cases of COVID-19. For the study, staff at the clinical laboratory collected two bilateral anterior nasal swabs from each patient. Immediately after collection, one swab was tested in the lab’s standard of care CE-Mark RT-PCR test and the other swab was tested by BiologyWorks k(now). Results from the BiologyWorks k(now) molecular test were 99.1% in overall percent agreement with the results of the RT-PCR lab tests.

Researchers at Penn Medicine have discovered a new, more effective method of preventing the body’s own proteins from treating nanomedicines like foreign invaders, by covering the nanoparticles with a coating to suppress the immune response that dampens the therapy’s effectiveness.

Antiviral medicine molnupiravir which recently got approval from the CDSCO in India and is being manufactured by many pharma companies, has serious safety concerns, and thus has not been included in the national COVID-19 clinical protocol recommended by the health ministry, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) director general Balram Bhargava said.

Bhargava said the COVID-19 task force has debated twice whether to include the Molnupiravir in the COVID-19 treatment protocol but decided against it because of concerns.

National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis [Formerly Tuberculosis Research Centre (TRC)], a permanent Institute under the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), is an internationally recognized Institution for Tuberculosis (TB) research. It is a Supranational Reference Laboratory and a WHO Collaborating Centre for TB Research and Training. Recently, an International Centre for Excellence in Research (ICER) in collaboration with NIH was established at the Centre.

As countries prepare themselves to fight a possible ‘next wave’. The new variant – Omicron has been making headline and a surge in Covid 19 cases are evident. According to a study based on population-level evidence, the recently identified Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 is associated with a substantial ability to evade immunity from prior Covid-19 infection. Omicron is also considered to be three times more transmissible than the Delta variant.

Bharat Biotech International Limited (BBIL) said that BBV152 (COVAXIN), its whole-virion inactivated COVID-19 vaccine candidate, has proven to be safe, well-tolerated, and immunogenic in paediatric subjects in phase 2 and 3 study.

Bharat Biotech had conducted phase 2/3, open-label, and multicenter studies to evaluate the safety, reactogenicity, and immunogenicity COVAXIN in healthy children and adolescents in the 2-18 age group.

Sun Pharma announced that one of its wholly owned subsidiaries has received Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) to manufacture and market a generic version of MSD (a trade name of Merck & Co., Inc, Kenilworth, NJ, USA) and Ridgebacks molnupiravir under the brand name Molxvir in India. Earlier this year, Sun Pharma had signed a nonexclusive voluntary licensing agreement with MSD to manufacture and supply a generic version of molnupiravir in over 100 low and middle-income countries (LMICs) including India.