September 25, 2023 – Merck's antiviral COVID drug could cause mutations within the coronavirus that occasionally spread to other people, based on a study published in the web journal Nature.
There is not any evidence that molnupiravir, sold under the brand name Lagevrio, caused the emergence of more transmissible or severe variants of COVID, the study said, but researchers called for closer scrutiny of the drug.
Researchers examined 15 million COVID genomes and located that typical mutations related to molnupiravir increased in 2022, particularly in places where the drug was widely used, corresponding to within the United States and the United Kingdom. B. Seniors.
Molnupiravir is an antiviral given to people in the event that they show signs of COVID-19 illness. It interferes with the COVID-19 virus's ability to make copies of itself, stopping the spread of the virus within the body and keeping virus levels low.
The study found that the virus can sometimes survive molnupiravir, resulting in mutations which have spread to other people.
Theo Sanderson, the study's lead creator and a postdoctoral researcher on the Francis Crick Institute in London, said The Guardian that the consequences of the mutations are unclear.
“The signature is very clear, but there are no widespread variants that carry this signature. “Right now there is nothing that is very widespread because of molnupiravir,” he said.
The study doesn't say people shouldn't use molnupiravir, but moderately calls on health authorities to take a look at it closely.
“The observation that molnupiravir treatment left visible traces in global sequencing databases, including forwarding of molnupiravir-derived sequences, will be an important consideration for evaluating the effects and evolutionary safety of this drug,” the researchers concluded.
When reached for comment, Merck questioned the evidence.
“The authors believe that these mutations were associated with viral spread in patients treated with molnupiravir, without any documented evidence of this transmission. Instead, the authors rely on circumstantial relationships between the region from which the sequence was identified and the time frame of sequence collection in countries where molnupiravir is available to draw their conclusions,” the corporate said.
The FDA approved using molnupiravir for the treatment of mild to moderate COVID-19 in adults in December 2021. The FDA has also approved using Paxlovid, an antiviral from Pfizer.