It appears nobody is secure from COVID even after taking an antiviral to stop it. An increasing number of people have reported having the symptoms again after successfully treating the condition with Pfizer’s COVID-19 pill. But scientists are slowly understanding the bizarre phenomenon dubbed “Paxlovid rebound” or COVID-19 rebound.
A few of the high-profile rebound cases that drew attention to the mysterious condition include U.S. President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden, in addition to Dr. Anthony Fauci. The undeniable fact that they once more tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 sparked concerns about just how steadily this might occur.
“From the information we’ve thus far, COVID-19 rebound is a comparatively infrequent event — this is just not happening nearly all of the time. A small percentage of individuals with Covid-19 experience a rebound of symptoms, including those that take antiviral medication, resembling Paxlovid,” a spokesperson for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told CNN.
Experts are having a difficult time determining how prevalent the condition is since the definitions of a COVID-19 rebound currently lack consistency. So that they estimated that rebound cases could probably be more common than what the available data suggests.
When Jill Biden, 71, tested positive for COVID on Aug. 24, she needed to be isolated at her family’s house in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. Like her husband Joe, 79, Jill had been twice-vaccinated and twice-boosted with the Pfizer vaccine. She had also been prescribed with Pfizer’s antiviral drug Paxlovid, found to be highly effective at stopping serious disease and death amongst high-risk individuals.
Strangely, like a lot of those that had taken the Paxlovid drug, the primary lady experienced a rebound case of the virus just a few days after her initial recovery. During her latest bout with SARS-CoV-2, Jill didn’t have symptoms. She also quickly recovered from the rebound and even tested negative for the virus on Monday, in response to the Independent.
Within the clinical trial documents forwarded by Pfizer to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last yr, the corporate admitted that “several subjects appeared to have a rebound in SARS-CoV-2 RNA levels.” Statistically, Pfizer identified that only 2% of the recipients of Paxlovid experienced the rebound.
Paxlovid recently made headlines after latest studies reported the drug’s possible downsides. As a mix of nirmatrelvir and ritonavir, Paxlovid was really helpful to scale back the danger of hospitalization and death in at-risk unvaccinated individuals. Nevertheless it was also prescribed to vaccinated people due to its efficacy, based on clinical trials.
Nonetheless, an Israeli study recently found that the drug provides little or no profit for younger adults belonging to the 40 to 64 age group. In response to the researchers, Paxlovid didn’t yield measurable advantages in people belonging to the age group. Nevertheless it effectively reduced hospitalizations amongst people 65 and above.
Two other studies reported the more severe rebound of SARS-CoV-2 in individuals who took Paxlovid in comparison with those that didn’t. Their findings were baffling considering that the drug was imagined to prevent viral infection.
“We’re all seeing people who find themselves taking Paxlovid doing rather well after which suddenly they’re getting sick again. There are such a lot of unanswered questions,” Michael Charness, a physician-scientist at VA Boston Healthcare in Massachusetts, told Nature of the Paxlovid rebound.
Researchers are currently searching for ways to elucidate Paxlovid rebound and make a greater guide for treating and stopping the condition. “There remains to be lots to learn,” Charness quipped.