Mer­ck claims pan­dem­ic break­through: Covid-19 pill re­duces hos­pi­tal­iza­tion and death by 50%

An an­tivi­ral pill re­duced the chance that a new­ly di­ag­nosed Covid-19 pa­tient would be hos­pi­tal­ized or die by 50%, Mer­ck an­nounced Fri­day, po­ten­tial­ly de­liv­er­ing — af­ter 21 months — one of the most elu­sive med­ical break­throughs of the pan­dem­ic.

If cleared by the FDA, the drug, known as mol­nupi­ravir, would be the first pill au­tho­rized to treat Covid-19. Such a drug would give doc­tors an eas­i­ly ad­min­is­tered tool to keep new­ly di­ag­nosed pa­tients, par­tic­u­lar­ly high-risk ones, from de­vel­op­ing se­vere dis­ease.

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