What Side Effects And Drug Interactions Do People Need To Account For When Takin

Posted by Liz Seyi on May 24th, 2022

The COVID-19 pandemic may not have dominated the national and international news headlines in recent weeks and months to quite the extent it once did, but the crisis has not ‘gone away’. The challenges for treatment, including ensuring safe medical dosage and calculationsfor the latest treatment options as they become available, remain very real. 

This is why the emergence of Pfizer’s Paxlovid treatment has been so interesting and important. Paxlovid is one of the few antivirals presently available to treat COVID-19, having been issued with an emergency use authorisation (EUA) by the Food and Drink Administration (FDA) in the United States in December. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom has also recently expanded access to this “cutting-edge” drug, which was found to reduce hospitalisations or death by 88% in clinical trials. 

However, while Paxlovid has been shown to be extremely effective in the treatment of severe COVID-19, one significant disadvantage is that there are various other medications it interacts with – including some antidepressants, heart medicines, and hormonal birth control. This, in turn, has implications for the measures those administering the drug must take to be sure of safe medical dosage and calculations. 

What does Paxlovid consist of, and why does this matter? 

Various side effects have been listed for Paxlovid, and these are generally mild, including the likes of diarrhoea, muscle aches, high blood pressure, and an altered sense of taste. Nor is Paxlovid a recommended medication for those with severe liver or kidney disease. 

However, it must also be noted that Paxlovid tends to interact with other medicines, to a degree that will cause concern for some people. Paxlovid comprises two drugs or compounds – nirmatrelvir and ritonavir – with patients benefitting from the medication expected to take nirmatrelvir and ritonavir tablets twice a day for five days. 

These drugs play an invaluable role in the medication’s effectiveness – nirmatrelvir, for instance, blocking a type of enzyme known as a protease that would usually snip strings of proteins produced by the virus during replication into smaller, functional pieces. Meanwhile, ritonavir prevents the metabolization of nirmatrelvir. 

However, in the words of Abinash Virk – a specialist in infectious disease at the Mayo Clinic, quoted by Popular Science – “both the drugs [in Paxlovid] affect enzymes in the liver that normally help clear other medications from a person’s body. Levels of some [of] these other medications may be increased or decreased.” 

Similar sentiments were expressed by Scott Roberts, associate medical director of infection prevention at the Yale University of Medicine. He said that the list of other medicines Paxlovid interacted with was “longer than most, and I think possibly most concerningly… it interacts with some medications that are really critical for many diseases.” 

He added that “a lot of these patients who are high-risk for COVID… are on medications that do need to be evaluated before administering this.” He further explained, however, that simply adjusting the dosage of the other drugs given to the patient was often enough to avoid complications. 

Do you have the right measures in place for safe and responsible dosage calculations? 

Whatever medications your line of work may necessitate you handling and administering, you will be much better placed to do so competently and safely when you have received the right training and assessment. Here at safeMedicate, our unique interactive technology helps to ensure exactly this, so that healthcare students and professionals can be more effective in their work.