Covid pill records dismal prescription rates

Boxes of Paxlovid, Pfizer’s oral treatment for Covid-19 [NEWS1]

Despite being introduced as a game changer in the pandemic, Pfizer's oral Covid-19 pill Paxlovid showed a low prescription rate in Korea.

According to health authorities on Wednesday, only 39 people were prescribed with Paxlovid during the three days after Korea first rolled out the pills across the country on Jan. 14.

This is far behind the government’s goal to treat more than 1,000 people a day with the first batch of pills which contains enough for 21,000 people.

“[Oral Covid-19 pills] have just been introduced and medical sites are still adapting to the treatment,” explained Son Young-rae, senior epidemiological strategist at the Central Disaster Management Headquarters, admitting that the prescription rate is “not very active.”

“We believe that now is a time when some training is needed [...] for various prescription criteria,” Son said. “Once this period is over, we expect prescriptions to become more actively administered.”

According to Korea’s Food and Drug Ministry, Paxlovid cannot be combined with 28 types of drugs as it may cause serious or even life-threatening side effects.

Of these drugs, 23 are currently being distributed in the country, such as analgesics "pethidine"; antianginal "ranolazine"; antiarrhythmic "amiodarone"; and anti-gout "colchicine."

Six types of drugs — herbal product "St. John's Wort"; anticonvulsant "carbamazepine"; "phenobarbital" and "phenytoin"; antimycobacterials "rifampin"; and anticancer agents "apalutamide" — cannot be administered with Paxlovid even if patients have stopped taking them.

“There seems to be restraints [in prescriptions] due to patients' kidney or liver condition in addition to the prohibited drugs, as well as difficulties in procedures and policies,” Son noted. “We are reviewing if there needs to be an improvement [with the policy and procedure].”

Health authorities plan to disclose a revised scheme for the prescription requirements as well as the progress of the Paxlovid prescriptions in the country on Friday. It is also set to begin a detailed analysis of Paxlovid and other oral Covid pills next month with domestic medical staff.

BY SEO JI-EUN [seo.jieun1@joongang.co.kr]