The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Dec. 22 granted emergency use authorization to Pfizer’s COVID-19 treatment pill—coming about a month after the federal government announced it would purchase 10 million courses of the drug.
The pill, Paxlovid, is taken twice per day for five days in combination with a second medicine called ritonavir, classified as a generic antiviral drug. The drug is aimed to help patients who are suffering from “mild-to-moderate” COVID-19 symptoms from becoming so sick that they need to be hospitalized, officials and Pfizer have said.
