Pfizer claims its medicine against Covid 90 percent effective in preventing hospitalization & deaths

Pharmaceutical company Pfizer Inc. said on Friday that its experimental antiviral pill against Covid reduces the risk of hospitalization and death by 90 percent. With this, the company has joined the race to introduce the first easily used drug against Covid-19 in the US market.

Currently in the US, the drug is given through a vein or injection in the treatment of Covid-19. The UK became the first country to approve a COVID-19 pill from competing pharmaceutical company Merck after already showing strong preliminary results. Pfizer said it would ask the FDA and international regulators to authorize the pill as soon as possible.

Once an application is made by Pfizer, the FDA could make a decision within weeks or months. Researchers around the world are working on developing a treatment pill against COVID-19 that can be taken at home to reduce symptoms, speed up recovery and reduce the burden on hospitals and doctors.

Pfizer released the preliminary results of its study on 775 adults on Friday. Patients taking the company’s drug with another antiviral had an 89 percent reduction in the combined rate of hospitalization or death after one month, compared with patients taking a dummy pill. Less than one percent of the patients taking the drug required hospitalization and none died.