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Guyana receives first shipment of Paxlovid pills

Loop News

March 14, 2023 3:31 PM ET

2 mins read

Guyana’s coronavirus (COVID-19) treatment protocols got a boost yesterday as the country received 5,040 Paxlovid pills from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

UNICEF’s Deputy Representative for Guyana and Suriname Irfan Akhtar handed over the pills, which cost over $1million to procure, to Guyanese Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony.

Paxlovid has been authorised for emergency use for the treatment of mild-to-moderate COVID-19 in adults and paediatric patients (12 years of age and older weighing at least 88 pounds [40 kg]). The UK’s NHS said Paxlovid is a combination of two medicines called nirmatrelvir and ritonavir. Nirmatrelvir stops the virus from growing and spreading, and ritonavir helps nirmatrelvir from being broken down in the body.

UNICEF was able to source the drugs for Guyana at a cost of US$84 per box due to an agreement with Pfizer-BioNTech.

Akhtar said UNICEF will continue to support Guyana to improve patient care for persons infected with COVID-19.

“This is the initial arrival of the medicines but it will depend on how people are proactive, coming forward to get the medicines. We will be happy to mobilise more medicines in the future,” Akhtar told the Department of Information (DPI).

“It doesn’t matter the severity of the disease. Obviously, if someone comes in with severe COVID, this would be one way of treating them but it doesn’t matter,” Anthony said to the DPI. “It’s really an antiviral medication and as you know, SARSCOV2 is a virus; and so, at critical points in its life cycle it would interrupt that life cycle and by doing so, prevent the virus from replicating and it has been quite effective in doing so.”