Covid antiviral pills available from GPs next week
It Said If Be By 4pm Is Dr Next Colm Henry Ordered Will Paxlovid Day Delivered The Before 5pm
GPs can offer a new treatment for Covid-19 from Tuesday, as the HSE expands access to Pfizer’s Paxlovid tablets outside of hospitals.
However, the tablets must be taken within five days of a positive PCR-test meaning patients will face a race against time as the turnaround between prescribing and delivery of the drug to pharmacies could take 24 hours.
The first delivery of 5,000 doses arrived last week and it is recommended for immunocompromised adults, with some exceptions, and unvaccinated adults.
In a letter to GPs, seen by the , HSE chief clinical officer Dr Colm Henry advised weekend deliveries and clinical support will be available. He said if Paxlovid is ordered by 4pm it will be delivered before 5pm the next day.
He wrote:
Jan Rynne, who has chronic lymphocytic leukemia, said: “It is very welcome that Paxlovid will be available to the community from next week.”
In Dr Henry’s letter, he warns some medications cannot be mixed with Paxlovid, and Ms Rynne said she was already advised to temporarily stop some of her own medication if she needs these tablets.
Among the more common drugs which would rule out taking Paxlovid are some anticoagulants including warfarin, some sedatives including diazepam, anticancer medicines, and anti-HIV medicines, doctors were advised.
Patient advocacy groups have been asked to tell their members to make a list of all their medications so even doctors unfamiliar with their care can quickly assess potential risks.
Co-founder of advocacy group Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia Ireland (CLLI), Ms Rynne hopes Ireland will also order AstraZeneca’s Evusheld, a preventative against catching Covid-19 in the first place.
Access to this drug as well Paxlovid and booster vaccines would, she said, “potentially put me back in a place that I could live life the way I used to live it, which is huge.”
A HSE spokeswoman said “ a full health technology assessment” of Evusheld by the National Centre for Pharmacoeconomics started on Monday.
She said 681 doses of a third medication Sotrovimab have been given in hospitals, but this has now been found to be less effective against the Omicron BA.2 variant.