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• Researchers are studying the symptom rebound phenomenon known as ‘COVID rebound’ or ‘Paxlovid rebound’
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief medical adviser to US President Joe Biden, said that he suffered a rebound of COVID-19 symptoms after taking one week course of Pfizer Inc’s (NYSE: PFE) antiviral oral treatment Paxlovid.
Fauci contracted coronavirus earlier this month despite being fully vaccinated and twice-boosted. He was prescribed Paxlovid due to his age — 81 — which puts him at high risk of developing complications.
“After I finished the five days of Paxlovid, I reverted to negative on an antigen test for three days in a row,” Fauci said Tuesday at Foreign Policy’s Global Health Forum.
“And then, on the fourth day, just to be absolutely certain, I tested myself again. I reverted back to positive.”
Several patients have reported the phenomenon, often known as ‘COVID rebound’ or ‘Paxlovid rebound’, the returning of symptoms after taking an entire course of Pfizer’s oral drug.
Though Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla last month said doctors could prescribe a second course of treatment to patients with rebounding symptoms, US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has said there’s no evidence that a repeat will help.
However, Fauci said he started taking a second course of the drug after experiencing symptoms “much worse than in the first go around.”
“So I went back on Paxlovid, and right now, I am on my fourth day of a five-day course,” he said, mentioning that he was still enduring symptoms but felt “reasonably good.”
Researchers at Pfizer and elsewhere are studying the symptom rebound phenomenon.
This month, Pfizer stopped enrollment in a drug study in patients who aren’t at high risk of severe disease after the pill didn’t lessen symptoms.
The study failed to demonstrate that the drug reduced COVID-19 symptoms among relatively healthy patients and couldn’t show a statistically significant reduction in hospitalization and death.
Picture Credit: Fortune
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