Merck & Co. and partner Ridgeback Biotherapeutics announced that six laboratory studies have shown that Molnupiravir, their investigational oral drug against Covid-19, is active against the Omicron variant. However, it has yet to be tested in human studies, the two companies said. Molnupiravir and Pfizer’s other rival pill were licensed in the United States in December and are considered important tools for fighting the coronavirus variant. As early as December, Pfizer said laboratory data suggested its drug Paxlovid was also effective against Omicron.
Just yesterday the structure of Commissioner Figliuolo, in agreement with the Ministry of Health, finalized a contract with Pfizer for the supply of 600,000 complete treatments of the antiviral Paxlovid during this year. The distribution of the first tranche, equal to 11,200 treatments, will take place in the first week of February and will be distributed to the Regions. The further treatments provided for in the contract will flow later.
Meanwhile, the European Commission is under accusation for not revealing the messages exchanged between the president, Ursula von der Leyen, and Pfizer CEO, Albert Bourla, to sign an agreement on vaccines against Covid-19. In response to a request for public access by a journalist, the EU Commission said it had not archived the messages. “The evasive way in which this request for public access was handled indicates that there have been no attempts to verify the existence of these messages,” said the European mediator, Emily O’Reilly, believing that this involves a case of “maladministration”. Hence the request to the EU Commission to check the messages in question again.
All while confirming the slowdown in infections in Italy, also in Lombardy which remains in the yellow zone, with the Omicron variant which now represents almost all cases: 95.8% for the Istituto Superiore di Sanita with a regional variability between 83.3% and 100%. The president of the Region, Attilio Fontana, in a post on his Facebook page, today stressed that “all the parameters are falling: the incidence on 100 thousand inhabitants is 13.6, below the national average which is 15. Employment levels also drop. of beds in intensive care and medical area “. Now Fontana is waiting for the government to accept the requests made at the conference of the Regions: eliminate the classification into zones and simplify quarantines, especially in the school environment, focusing specifically on symptomatic positives. “Lombardy and the whole country need to restart the economy and life”, she concluded.
However, the Istituto Superiore di Sanita today, while highlighting that the decline in the weekly incidence of Covid cases in Italy and admissions to intensive care and ordinary hospital wards has begun, while the average Rt index continues to decline, has also warned that various regions and autonomous provinces have reported delays in entering the data of the individual flow “and it cannot be excluded that these values ​​may be underestimated”. The incidence, in the week from 21 to 27 January, was equal to 1,823 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, from 2,011 to 100,000 in the previous week. The intensive care employment rate was 16.7% compared to 17.3% on January 20. It should be remembered that with the intensive care employment rate at 30%, the entrance to the town in the red zone. (All rights reserved)
