Paxlovid offers protection against some long COVID symptoms, study says. What to know

Julia Marnin
Stephanie Nano/AP

New findings suggest Pfizer’s COVID-19 pill Paxlovid may offer protection against lingering coronavirus symptoms — otherwise known as long COVID — regardless of vaccination status.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines long COVID as “new, returning, or ongoing” health issues experienced at least four weeks after a COVID-19 infection. It can be the cause of lasting brain fog, fatigue, heart palpitations and more as it affects many parts of the body.

A large, preprint study found those who took a Paxlovid pill regimen within five days of testing positive for COVID-19 had lower chances — specifically a 26% reduced risk — of developing some long COVID symptoms. The work was published Nov. 5 in medRxiv, a server run by Yale University, BMJ and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, and has not undergone peer review.

Some of the post-COVID symptoms included fatigue, heart issues such as ischemic heart disease, muscle pain, shortness of breath and blood disorders, according to the research.

The work examined U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs records of 56,340 people who tested positive for COVID-19 between March and June.

“Paxlovid reduces the risk of severe COVID-19 in the acute phase, and now, we have evidence that it can help reduce the risk of long COVID,” lead study author Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, the head of research and development at the VA St. Louis Health Care System, said in a news release.

To date, the only “100% effective” way to prevent long COVID is to avoid getting sick from COVID-19 altogether, Dr. Eric Topol, the founder and director of Scripps Research Translational Institute, reports.

But based on the Veterans Affairs study, which acknowledges there is no proven long COVID medication, Paxlovid may be another way to reduce the risk of developing it, Topol said.

“It is the first such report, so it will need to be independently replicated to be certain it holds up,” Topol wrote in a Nov. 6 blog post.

In the U.S., millions are estimated to be living with long COVID, and doctors are treating it through a variety of approaches depending on a patient’s symptoms, McClatchy News reported.

More on the Paxlovid study

In late December, the Food and Drug Administration granted Paxlovid emergency use authorization. People take it as an oral pill, and is not for those hospitalized with COVID-19.

The treatment consists of three antiviral medication tablets, two of nirmatrelvir and one of ritonavir, taken twice per day, according to FDA and the National Institutes of Health, which describes Paxlovid as “ritonavir-boosted nirmatrelvir.”

The study’s 56,340 participants had an average age of 65. They were unvaccinated, vaccinated and boosted and had at least one risk factor for progressing to severe COVID-19, including cancer, smoking status, heart disease and diabetes.

Of the participants, 9,217 were treated with Paxlovid within five days of testing positive for COVID-19, while the remaining 47,123 did not take any antiviral medications, according to the research. These individuals were followed up with until August.

Ultimately, taking Paxlovid was associated with a lower risk of developing 10 of 12 long COVID conditions examined for those with both initial COVID-19 infections and reinfections, the study found.

The conditions included cardiovascular issues such as dysrhythmia and ischemic heart disease and blood issues including pulmonary embolism and deep vein thrombosis, according to the research.

Other conditions, according to the study, included:

  • Fatigue

  • Liver disease

  • Acute kidney disease

  • Muscle pain

  • Neurocognitive impairment

  • Shortness of breath

Additional study findings showed Paxlovid was associated with a lower risk of hospitalization and death following the initial period of a COVID-19 infection.

Participants were mostly white men, which “may limit generalizability of study findings,” authors wrote.

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