A new treatment for severe cases of Covid-19 is under the process of seeking federal approval in the United Kingdom. Antivirals are medicines which are swallowed as a capsule to help treat people with Covid-19 infections to reduce the risk of hospitalizations and death.
The UK is currently searching for 6,000 adults over the age of 50 who have tested positive for Covid-19 within the last five days to participate in a new clinical trial. Although the pill has not yet been approved by UK or United States regulators its trials have provided promising results thus far. Molnupiravir, the Covid-19 antiviral involved, has already shown to reduce the risk for non-hospitalized adults with mild to moderate Covid-19 by 30% in previous testing.
On December 23rd, 2021, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized the use of Molnupiravir in certain emergency situations. Patrizia Cavazzoni, M.D., director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research said, “Molnupiravir is limited to situations where other FDA-authorized treatments for COVID-19 are inaccessible or are not clinically appropriate and will be a useful treatment option for some patients with COVID-19 at high risk of hospitalization or death.”
The deputy chief medical officer for England said this study could help determine the best course of action for using antiviral medications in the treatment of Covid-19. The UK health secretary Sajid Javid is urging eligible populations to participate as this study could “help us learn more about medicines which would save thousands of lives”.
Volunteers in the study are provided with pills to take home. There are currently 4,500 participants undergoing the proposed treatment, but 6,000 participants are required to satisfy the trial. Javid explains that the best outcome in the proposed approval of the Molnupiravir antiviral pill will directly impact the lives of the most vulnerable populations by preventing hospitalizations and deaths.
While many are experiencing Covid burnout- or are perhaps focusing less on the ongoing conversation surrounding the pandemic, Molnupiravir has re-sparked interest among almost 30k individuals worldwide. According to Sprinklr, our social media data analytics tool, Molnupiravir pills have been mentioned 29.53K times across social media and have reached a whopping 464.49 million feeds largely through news channels and on Twitter.
However, the overall sentiment of each mention reveals that there may not be as many citizen-led responses as anticipated. In fact, 21.49K of the mentions across all social media platforms indicated a neutral sentiment. This is likely due to the nature of news sources remaining unbiased in their reporting.
Of the remainder, there were 5.32K negative mentions and only 2K positive mentions regarding the newest Covid-19 pill undergoing testing protocols. This indicates that amongst the total number of individuals sharing their thoughts on the matter, there is notable aversion in more than 70% of responses towards this proposed treatment.
Perhaps it is our inability to predict the potential length of the ongoing pandemic that leads to increased negative mentions or overall distrust towards the treatment. Regardless, it is likely that the prominence of Covid-19, and its treatment options will remain of high importance on social media as we navigate the future course of the pandemic. Covid-19 pills like Molnupiravir will likely become more prominent the media and accessible as treatment for the virus in the coming months.
It can only be our hope that the study of Molnupiravir will be conducted to its full scale and provide results that will better our chances of surviving the pandemic while keeping our most vulnerable populations safe.
