<Anchor> If
you have any questions, I'll ask Dong-chan Cho, a medical reporter.
Q. What medicines are you taking?
[Cho Dong-chan / Medical reporter (specialist): It can be, if approved. An oral remedy is a drug that reduces the amount of virus in the body. Let's take a look at the picture. The amount of virus is high in mild cases and low in severe cases. So I am not good at infecting others. Severe disease is caused by the malignant inflammation left by the virus passing through, so it is useless to use antiviral drugs at this time. Therefore, it is only used for mild patients, but it is not necessary to get vaccinated healthy people, so it is decided to use only for mild high-risk patients.]
Q. A drug that is taken rather than an antibody treatment?
[Cho Dong-chan / Medical reporter (specialist): Taking medicine is convenient and cheaper. And also because of Omicron, which will become the dominant species in the future. The Pasteur Institute in France investigated 12 injectable antibody treatments, and 8 had no effect on Omicron. Only four, AstraZeneca and GSK, which have not yet entered Korea, were found to be effective. This is because the site that the existing antibody treatment is trying to attack has changed in Omicron. On the other hand, there is still no evidence that the area that the drug is attacked has changed in Omicron. So, expectations are higher.]
Q. Why did France cancel Merck's drug purchase?
[Cho Dong-chan / Medical reporter (specialist): I think we need to see if France is going to switch from Merck to Pfizer.
In clinical trials, Merck had a severe prevention rate of 50% and Pfizer was 89%, so Pfizer seemed high.
Since Merck is targeting a higher-risk group, I think the effects of the two drugs are similar.
But when I saw Merck's drug market, the severe prevention rate dropped to 30%, which seems to be the reason for the cancellation of the purchase in France.
Pfizer will have to take a look after it goes on sale.
So, although taking drugs is a weapon against Corona, I don't think we should rely too much on it.]
▶ US FDA approves Corona pills...
Bought at a pharmacy and taken at home
▶ [Exclusive] 'Pfizer pill' likely to be approved first...
will be introduced next month