Latest evidence on the drugs that work against Covid

Experts have revealed when the latest Covid wave should end and what we can expect from the latest treatments.

Covid cases are rising with over 100,000 infections reported last week – but experts say it is unlikely to spoil Christmas, as new evidence emerges on the treatments that work.

“I would be optimistic for Christmas this year,” Queensland University vaccine expert Associate Professor Paul Griffin said.

“It looks like we’re past the peak of the current wave, and that hopefully things will dissipate fairly quickly,” he told a Gilead Sciences briefing on the pandemic.

University of Melbourne Infectious Diseases expert Professor Kumar Visvanathan said Australia was now well positioned to cope with the virus with high levels of vaccination and good treatments and protocols.

But they warned Australians not to forget the basics as they launched into travel and Christmas parties – stay home if unwell, get vaccinated, ask your doctor for new treatments if infected.

Assoc Prof Griffin advised high-risk people to consult a GP in advance of getting Covid to devise a plan for what they would do if they did get infected.

Infectious diseases expert Associate Professor Paul Griffin. NewsWire / Sarah Marshall

An update on Covid treatments found strong evidence in favour of a very old anti-inflammatory steroid medication, dexamethasone, while there were ten medicines that should not be used, including aspirin.

There was also no evidence to support the use of hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, azithromyicin, convalescent plasma and other drugs, Assoc Prof Griffin said.

There is conditional evidence for using new antiviral Paxlovid which must be taken in the first five days of infection, but many people can’t use it because it interacts with other medications.

Covid-19 antiviral drug Paxlovid can save lives and reduce the length of an infection.

Prof Visvanathan called for better tools for GPs to ascertain which patients were suitable for Paxlovid, including a hotline staffed by pharmacists.

Australia’s expert Covid advisory committee has recommended against the use of another new antiviral called Molnupiravir after studies showed it made little difference to the virus death rate if people were infected with new variants.

However, both Assoc Prof Griffin and Prof Visvanathan said it should still be an option if patients could not use Paxlovid because studies showed it could still speed recovery by 4.2 days.

Covid-19 antiviral drug Molnupiravir

“If we look at the burden of infection in our community a 4.2 days faster recovery would be an enormous positive outcome,” Assoc Prof Griffin said.

With a long gap between people’s last Covid vaccine Prof Visvanathan said we were getting close to a time when people who wanted a fifth jab should be able to access one.

“The committee (ATAGI, the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation) has so far decided not to give it to Australians... and that’s because there’s a small incremental improvement, but not a substantial improvement. I think that in sometime in the future, they will,” he said.

While he would never encourage people to get infected he said an infection could work like a fourth or fifth vaccine.

“It counts almost as another vaccination because it actually is giving you some immunity,” he said.

Last week Covid cases surged by 20 per cent with 100,422 cases reported across Australia, an average of 14,346 cases per day. This compares to 83,668 cases in the previous week, an average of 11,953 per day.

There were 2689 people hospitalised with the virus, up 19.9 per cent on the previous week and 85 patients were in ICU, up 13.2 per cent. However, many of these people are in hospital for other reasons and coincidentally have Covid.

Last week, there were 36 deaths, compared to 33 the week before.