{"id":474,"date":"2021-11-05T11:55:53","date_gmt":"2021-11-05T11:55:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/kentconnect\/?p=474"},"modified":"2021-11-05T11:55:53","modified_gmt":"2021-11-05T11:55:53","slug":"britain-becomes-the-first-to-approve-covid-19-pill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/kentconnect\/2021\/11\/05\/britain-becomes-the-first-to-approve-covid-19-pill\/","title":{"rendered":"Britain becomes the first to approve Covid-19 pill"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The UK has bought 480,000 courses of the new antiviral Covid-19 pill&nbsp;Molnupiravir&nbsp;\u202fdeveloped by U.S.-based Merck &amp; Co Inc\u202f<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/companies\/MRK.N\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">(MRK.N)<\/a>\u202fand Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, in a boost to the fight against the pandemic.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It has now been approved by the MHRA, the medical regulator and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/news\/first-oral-antiviral-for-covid-19-lagevrio-molnupiravir-approved-by-mhra\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">recommended<\/a>\u202fthe&nbsp;drug,for&nbsp;use in people with mild to moderate&nbsp;the virus&nbsp;and at least one risk factor for developing severe illness, such as obesity, older age diabetes, and heart disease.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The pill, which will be branded as&nbsp;Lagevrio&nbsp;in Britain&nbsp;and is taken twice a day for five days.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>UK vaccines minister Maggie Throup told parliament&nbsp;\u201cWe are now working across government and the NHS to urgently get this treatment to patients\u201d.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As winter is approaching,&nbsp;the pressure&nbsp;is&nbsp;also growing&nbsp;on the government to protect&nbsp;the NHS from unsustainable demands, involving mask mandates, vaccine passes and work-from-home orders.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lagevrio&nbsp;is a part of the \u2018Plan B\u2019 measures needed help relieve this pressure.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>More information can be found on\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/collections\/mhra-guidance-on-coronavirus-covid-19\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/collections\/mhra-guidance-on-coronavirus-covid-19<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lina Ali<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The UK has bought 480,000 courses of the new antiviral Covid-19 pill&nbsp;Molnupiravir&nbsp;\u202fdeveloped by U.S.-based Merck &amp; Co Inc\u202f(MRK.N)\u202fand Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, in a boost to the fight against the pandemic.&nbsp; It has now been approved by the MHRA, the medical regulator and&nbsp;recommended\u202fthe&nbsp;drug,for&nbsp;use in people with mild to moderate&nbsp;the virus&nbsp;and at least one risk factor for developing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":475,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/kentconnect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/kentconnect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/kentconnect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/kentconnect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/kentconnect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/kentconnect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":476,"href":"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/kentconnect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474\/revisions\/476"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/kentconnect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/kentconnect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/kentconnect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/kentconnect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}