Document Type
Article
Publication Date
9-7-2023
Publication Title
medRxiv
DOI
10.1101/2023.06.16.23288870
Abstract
The antiviral drug Paxlovid has been shown to rapidly reduce viral load. Coupled with vaccination, timely administration of safe and effective antivirals could provide a path towards managing COVID-19 without restrictive non-pharmaceutical measures. Here, we estimate the population-level impacts of expanding treatment with Paxlovid in the US using a multi-scale mathematical model of SARS-CoV-2 transmission that incorporates the within-host viral load dynamics of the Omicron variant. We find that, under a low transmission scenario (Re∼1.2) treating 20% of symptomatic cases would be life and cost saving, leading to an estimated 0.26 (95% CrI: 0.03, 0.59) million hospitalizations averted, 30.61 (95% CrI: 1.69, 71.15) thousand deaths averted, and US$52.16 (95% CrI: 2.62, 122.63) billion reduction in health- and treatment-related costs. Rapid and broad use of the antiviral Paxlovid could substantially reduce COVID-19 morbidity and mortality, while averting socioeconomic hardship.
Recommended Citation
Bai, Yuan, Zhanwei Du, Lin Wang, Eric H. Y. Lau, Isaac Fung, Petter Holme, Ben Cowling, Alison Galvani, Robert Krug, Lauren Ancel Meyers.
2023.
"The Public Health Impact of Paxlovid COVID-19 Treatment in the United States."
medRxiv: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Preprints.
doi: 10.1101/2023.06.16.23288870 pmid: 37732213
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/bee-facpubs/410
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Comments
Georgia Southern University faculty member, Isaac Chun-Hai Fung co-authored The Public Health Impact of Paxlovid COVID-19 Treatment in the United States.