The anti-corona pills from pharmaceutical company Pfizer will drastically reduce the number of victims and hospital admissions, US President Joe Biden expects. His government has doubled the order to 20 million.
Shortly before Christmas, the FDA gave approval for the use of the Paxlovid pills, which are mainly intended for patients who are at high risk. The cost of the first order of 10 million pills was 5.3 billion dollars (4.7 billion euros).
Like other countries, the US is experiencing a large increase in infections as a result of the omikron variant. On Monday, a daily record of more than 1 million new cases was recorded.
Unvaccinated people are much more likely to experience severe disease symptoms. Biden called it “a pandemic of the unvaccinated” and again called on everyone to get a shot or a booster. People die when they don’t have to, he said, as did British Prime Minister Johnson earlier today.
Belgium has also placed an order for the Paxlovid pills from Pfizer and for Molnupiravir, a corona drug from Merck. Both drugs received provisional approval from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) at the end of last year. Germany also placed an order.
Belgium buys 10,000 treatments with corona pills from both Pfizer and Merck
Marc Van Ranst about approval of the corona pill: “A particularly positive development, but does not replace vaccines”
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