By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO, (Reuters) – Two patients reported relief from COVID long-term after receiving treatment Pfizer Advocates and experts say that Paxlovid’s antiviral Paxlovid is intriguing evidence. It was also tested on herself by a researcher.

After receiving the oral treatment with two drugs, “felt as if a truck had hit me,” her chronic fatigue symptoms disappeared.

The long COVID, a serious health problem that can last for months, is estimated to impact up to 30% to 40% of coronavirus infected people. Many are unable to work for several months. There are more than 200 symptoms associated with this condition. These include fatigue, pain, brain fog, breathing problems, and exhaustion even after a minimal amount of activity.

Steven Deeks is a Professor of Medicine at the University of California San Francisco (USSF) and an expert on HIV cure research. He stated that drug companies often discount case studies with single patients. However, such cases have driven HIV cure research and Deeks suggests that Paxlovid patients could be used to do the exact same thing for COVID long term.

    “This provides really strong evidence that we need to be studying antiviral therapy in this context as soon as possible,” said Deeks, adding that he has heard of yet another anecdotal case at UCSF in which a long COVID patient’s symptoms cleared after taking Paxlovid.

Scientists caution that these cases are “hypothesis-generating only” and not proof that the drug caused relief of lingering symptoms. These cases support the theory that COVID can last for many months and may have an effect on daily life of patients long after the acute symptoms go away.

A National Institutes of Health study (NIH), currently under peer review. Researchers performed autopsies on 44 patients who had died from COVID-19, or other causes, but were also infected. Researchers found widespread infections throughout the body and in the brain that could last for up to seven months after the initial onset of symptoms.

Paxlovid is a combination of the new Pfizer tablet and the antiviral drug ritonavir. It can be used in the initial days after a COVID infection. This prevents severe illness in patients at high risk.

Kit Longley of Pfizer stated that there are no long COVID studies currently underway. He did not say whether the company would look into them.

There are two clinical trials being carried out by the drugmaker that will test whether Paxlovid prevents initial COVID infection. Longley indicated that these “may provide relevant data for future studies.”

Patients who suffer for several months are becoming frustrated by the absence of any pharmaceutical research.

A Reuters review showed that only 20 of the current COVID clinical trials are being led by either small-scale drugmakers and individual researchers.

Diana Berrent is the founder of Survivor Corps, a grassroots COVID advocacy organization. She has worked tirelessly to lobby the Biden Administration for large, long COVID clinical trials.

   “We shouldn’t be doing our research based on anecdotal reports,” she said. “That’s not good enough.”

The ‘BACK TO THE NORMAL’

A 47-year old woman, previously healthy, was infected by COVID. The case report, which is published in preprint before peer review, describes how she contracted the disease in summer 2021. Most of her acute symptoms dissipated within 48 hours, but she continued to have severe fatigue, brain fog, exhaustion after exercise, insomnia, racing heartbeat and body aches severe enough that she could no longer work.

    About six months after her initial infection, she was reinfected, likely with COVID, and many of her acute symptoms also returned. A five-day Paxlovid course was prescribed by her doctor.

    On day 3, she noticed a rapid improvement of long COVID symptoms. “She’s back normal,” stated Dr. Linda Geng who is co-director at Stanford Health Care’s long COVID Clinic and the author of Research Square’s case report.

Lavanya Vidvabharathy was 37 years old and an immunologist who worked at Northwestern Medicine (NASDAQ:) Medicine’s long-standing COVID clinic. She became infected on December 20,21.

Although her initial symptoms were not severe, she developed chronic fatigue and headaches four months later. Rapid antigen testing continued to show positive results, which is a sign that she was still infected.

Visvabharathy became aware of the Stanford case and the NIH study. She decided to test Paxlovid in order to determine if the drug could cure any lingering viral infections. Her fatigue and insomnia improved by the end of the 5-day course. She also noticed that her headaches became less frequent. Her fatigue disappeared two weeks later. She said, “That’s 100% fixed.”

Visvabharathy explained that Paxlovid is not able to provide such relief, but it would be necessary for controlled clinical trials.

Northwestern Medicine’s specialist in neurological effects of COVID longs noted the many medications that have been affected by Ritonavir. Dr. Igor Koralnik said Paxlovid cannot be used randomly.

“Paxlovid is not a benign medication,” he said. “There should be studies.”