Could preventing COVID-19 be as simple as taking a single
pill? That’s what Montefiore Health System and Albert Einstein College of
Medicine is currently studying.
They are enrolling patients in a clinical trial
for an anti-viral pill called Molnupiravir.
Doctors are specifically looking for patients who are
unvaccinated and were very recently exposed to COVID-19.
Currently, the only authorized treatments for COVID-19 are
intravenous – so doctors say the pill could be a gamechanger.
“It reduced hospitalization or death in the people who got
Molnupiravir and, in fact, there were no deaths with people who got
Molnupiravir,” says Dr. Barry Zingman, the principal investigator for the
Montefiore-Einsten trial.
He says an oral pill would “revolutionize the treatment” and
potentially the prevention of the virus as well.
Doctors say the best protection against COVID-19 is getting
vaccinated.
Montefiore is the only hospital in New York running the pill
trials.