Safety of this new drug is unknown tho.
Remember how thalydamide was touted as a wonder drug and what a disaster it turned out to be.
How safe is molnupiravir?
Obviously, a drug given early in Covid needs a clean safety profile. So far, the data included in the press release look very good. Patients in the placebo arm were three times
more likely to withdraw from the study due to apparent side effects than those who actually received molnupiravir. That likely means the side effects of Covid were worse than those of the drug.
But only so much can be seen from that kind of data. Molnupiravir works by messing up the way the virus copies RNA, its genetic material, preventing viral replication. There is some concern it could be mutagenic, meaning that it could cause mutations. One result could be that it causes birth defects. In the clinical trial, both women and men were told to either abstain from sexual intercourse or to use contraception while they were taking the drug and for at least four days after. Women of childbearing age also needed a negative pregnancy test to start taking the medicine.
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How does this treatment relate to ivermectin?
This is simple: it doesn’t. But it’s worth taking a look at what data are available for each.
Ivermectin, ironically, is another Merck drug. The company’s donation of the medicine to be used to combat a parasitic disease called river blindness is one of the great examples of pharmaceutical philanthropy. It’s also used as a veterinary drug to treat heartworm.
