Covid prevention & cure

INDIA-MADE vaccine Covaxin has, finally, been okayed by the WHO. The UK has cleared the Merck-made anti-viral pill for the treatment of Covid-19. A testimony to the scientists’ acumen, the two developments mark the latest significant milestones in the fight against the deadly pandemic. The momentous approvals have been much awaited, for they hold the hope of untangling many a knot besieging the world ever since Covid broke out exactly two years ago — in November 2019 — quickly engulfing the planet and causing unprecedented health and socio-economic upheavals.

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As far as prevention goes, Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin becoming the seventh vaccine to get WHO recognition for emergency use listing comes as a huge relief as foreign travel curbs on Indians injected with its doses (over 120 million shots administered so far) would ease. Notably, no more quarantine upon arrival abroad for them, nor the need for other approved jabs for NRI students to attend offline classes. India gets a proud space among the select few countries making and exporting Covid vaccines as the approval clears the hurdles and scepticism that have beset Bharat Biotech till now. To meet the imminent sharp rise in demand globally, the pharmaceutical major will need to boost production.

Regarding cure, the Covid-weary world would be closely following Britain’s use of a drug — molnupiravir — to treat adult patients having at least one risk factor for developing severe disease. To be taken at home on the doctor’s advice, if the pill succeeds in easing the symptoms and hospitalisation of mild Covid (as trials show), it holds a groundbreaking, easy-on-the-purse promise. More so, since Merck has, commendably, agreed to allow all other firms to make its drug in a bid to enable poorer countries get equal access, even as the rich nations have placed bulk orders. With the wait for vaccination for millions of underprivileged nations being very long, molnupiravir could well be the answer to their ills. Pending review, time will tell if it proves effective or goes the way of some other drugs, like remdesivir, that were eventually taken off the Covid treatment protocol.