National Institutes of Health's Long COVID Initiative To Assess Pfizer's Antiviral Pill As Potential Treatment

The National Institutes of Health's $1 billion RECOVER Initiative has decided to study Pfizer Inc's PFE antiviral drug Paxlovid as a potential treatment for long COVID.
Long COVID involves more than 200 symptoms ranging from exhaustion and cognitive impairment to pain, fever, and heart palpitations that can last for months and even years following a COVID-19 infection.
Estimates of long COVID prevalence range from 5 to 50% of people who have had a COVID-19 infection. It affects people with mild and severe COVID-19, including children.
According to details posted on Clinicaltrials.gov, the randomized, placebo-controlled trial will test Pfizer's treatment or placebo in 1,700 adult volunteers.
The Duke Clinical Research Institute is supervising the study, scheduled to start on January 1, 2023.
Reuters reported that several patients reported improvements in their symptoms after taking Pfizer's antiviral treatment.
Paxlovid is currently authorized for use in the first days of a COVID infection to prevent severe disease in high-risk patients.
Some researchers found that naltrexone has been used to treat pain, fatigue, and brain fog months after a coronavirus infection.
Naltrexone is a medication primarily used to manage alcohol or opioid use disorder.
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