UK: The First Country to Approve Merck’s Oral Coronavirus Antiviral Pill

After stages of clinical trials for a coronavirus antiviral pill, UK has finally granted a conditional authorization for the first-ever antiviral drug to treat COVID-19 in the country.

UK is the first country to approve Merck's oral coronavirus antiviral pill, after the pharmaceutical company announced that its experimental pill reduced hospitalizations and deaths by half in people recently infected with the virus.

The drug, known as molnupiravir, was licensed for adults 18 and older, taken twice a day for five days for people who have previously tested positive for COVID-19 with mild to moderate symptoms. The pill helps speed up recovery and reduce hospitalization, curbing outbreaks especially in poorer countries with fragile health systems.

Merck's drug awaits U.S., Europe and the world to authorize its use - a potentially major advance in battling the global pandemic.

Limited first supply

Although molnupiravir is still in pending review for other countries, Merck announce that its initial supplies will be limited to 10 million treatment courses through the end of the year, and much has already been purchased by governments worldwide.

UK had secured 480,000 courses for Britons to have access to this winter.

"Today is a historic day for our country, as the U.K. is now the first country in the world to approve an antiviral that can be taken at home for COVID-19," said Britain's health secretary, Sajid Javid.

"We are working at pace across the government and with the NHS to set out plans to deploy molnupiravir to patients through a national study as soon as possible," he said, referring to the U.K.'s National Health Service. According to doctors, the treatment particularly works well for people who do not respond as much to vaccines.

Aim to help people in poorer countries

As countries scramble to contain widespread of Covid-19 outbreak since the first wave of infections began in Wuhan, economies of some had also plunged and some regions have not had equal access to medication, treatment, and vaccines.

Merck and other drugmakers agreed to make COVID-19 pill accessible to poorer countries as long as the World Health Organization deems COVID-19 to be a global emergency. However, some activists criticized the Medicines Patent Pool, a United Nations-backed group, for excluding many middle-income countries like Brazil and China in producing millions of treatments for Covid.

Still, Merck was commended for its great work and for sharing their formula to help other companies produce the same, speeding up the fight against the pandemic.

"Unlike the grotesquely unequal distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, the poorest countries will not have to wait at the back of the queue for molnupiravir," said Dr. Mohga Kamal-Yanni, a senior health adviser to the People's Vaccine Alliance, as less than 1% of the world's COVID-19 vaccines have gone to poor countries.

Experts hope easier-to-dispense treatments will help curb the pandemic not just in developing countries, but all around the world.