Published in: The Daily Star
Date: 17 November, 2021

The Directorate General of Health Services has instructed all public hospitals to prescribe oral anti-Covid drug Molnupiravir yesterday.

The development comes over a week after the drug administration gave emergency production and usage approval to the world’s first oral anti-Covid drug in the local market.

“We have instructed all public hospitals that physicians can use the drug to treat Covid-19 adult patients with mild to moderate symptoms. It cannot be used by patients with severe symptoms,” Farid Hossain Mian, director of hospitals and clinics at the DGHS, told The Daily Star last night.

On November 8, the drug administration gave emergency production and usage approval to multiple drug-makers in the country.

The drug, however, must be used within five days of showing symptoms in a patient, Farid said.

Developed by American pharmaceutical companies Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, the pills are designed to be taken as soon as possible after a positive coronavirus test and within five days of the onset of symptoms — a time when the virus is replicating rapidly and the immune system has not yet mounted a defence.

Patients will take four capsules twice a day for five days, so the full course would cost around Tk 2,000, according to the price of the drug in the local market.

Source: https://www.thedailystar.net/health/disease/coronavirus/news/covid-treatment-dghs-asks-doctors-prescribe-molnupiravir-2232051