Covid-19 roundup: De­spite treat­ment short­ages, some US phar­ma­cies re­port pile-ups of Mer­ck­'s an­tivi­ral

The fed­er­al gov­ern­ment has on­ly sent four ship­ments of Mer­ck’s Covid-19 an­tivi­ral mol­nupi­ravir (about 400,000 cours­es in each ship­ment) na­tion­wide, and al­ready HHS is re­port­ing that some phar­ma­cies are run­ning out of space for the pill be­cause so few peo­ple are us­ing it.

Once con­sid­ered a cen­ter­piece of the US Covid-19 ar­ma­men­tar­i­um, the Mer­ck pill is now pil­ing up on phar­ma­cy shelves as both Pfiz­er’s pill Paxlovid and GSK/Vir’s mon­o­clon­al an­ti­body sotro­vimab are rec­om­mend­ed for use ahead of mol­nupi­ravir.

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