Covid-19: Antiviral Pills

Baroness Wheeler Excerpts

Monday 31st January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

At the moment, they are available to anyone in an at-risk group and unable to have a vaccine. In addition, we have started a new trial to get more data—called the PANORMIC trial—including anyone over 50 who has tested positive through a PCR test and anyone in an at-risk group between 18 and 49 who catches Covid. The difference between vaccinations and antivirals is that vaccinations are there to stop someone getting Covid, or to make sure that they do not suffer the worst symptoms, whereas antivirals are given to anyone who has tested positive.

[Baroness Wheeler (Lab)]

My Lords, we welcome the news over the weekend about high-risk patients getting the Paxlovid antiviral drug from 10 February through the NHS if they test positive. There are also very positive results about the Molnupiravir drug, which has already been rolled out to high-risk patients through the Oxford University study. The British Liver Trust, Kidney Care UK and Cystic Fibrosis Trust are leading urgent calls for people suffering with these very vulnerable conditions to sign up to take part in the on-going clinical trials, which are essential in gathering further evidence and information. What action are the Government taking to ensure that doctors and patients have the latest information about the drug and the trials and to combat the ill-informed and dangerous antiviral scepticism that we know will be forthcoming?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question and for making people aware of the PANORAMIC study. One of the things that we are trying to do is look at the communication programme. If we look at the antiviral taskforce, we are looking at a number of different communication channels. For example, tomorrow morning, I believe, I will be co-chairing a webinar with many black and minority ethnic groups and activists to see how we can roll out and get their support in rolling out to those communities. We are looking at a number of different channels and particularly working with a lot of the charities which specialise in things such as chronic kidney disease, liver disease—I have a long list of conditions, which I will not read out now.