CUHK Research: New COVID-19 Oral Medication Lowers Risk of Hospital Admission of Older Patients by 54 Percent

Members of the CU Medicine research team on the effectiveness of the Covid19 oral antivirals. (L-R) Dr Bosco Ma Hon-ming, Associate Professor (Honorary) ; Dr Terry Yip Cheuk-fung, Assistant Professor and Assistant Director of Medical Data Analytics Centre; and Professor Grace Wong Lai-hung, Professor and Director of Medical Data Analytics Centre, from the Department of Medicine and Therapeutics at CU Medicine. Courtesy of Chinese University of Hong Kong

In the face of the recent rebound in coronavirus infection, the research team of the Faculty of Medicine (CU Med) at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) conducted a study on older patients in nursing homes. The result proves that two oral antivirals, Molnupiravir and Nirmatrelvir/ Ritonavir, known as Paxlovid, can lower the risk of hospitalization and inpatient disease progression by 54 percent and 65 to 83 percent, respectively.

CU Medicine collected data from 14,617 older people in Hong Kong diagnosed with COVID-19 between February and March 2022, who are under the care of community elderly assessment teams.