What is ‘Covid rebound’ and how is it connected to Big Pharma?

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Biden Administration’s chief medical advisor, announced he suffered a ‘rebound’ on his Covid-19 infection after taking Paxlovid, an antiviral pill by Pfizer. However, he’s hardly the only one.

“I turned positive about two weeks ago, with very minimal symptoms. When they increased, given my age, I went on Paxlovid for five days”, Fauci said on during July 28, during the Foreign Policy’s Global Health Forum and as quoted by CNN.

After five days on the drug, CNN reports, Fauci tested negative. He had three consecutive days of negative tests. However, after the fourth day, he tested positive again.

Image: Medakit Ltd / Unsplash

‘Covid rebound’ is defined by CBS news as “a reemergence of Covid symptoms” after patients take the Pfizer pill.

Reuters explains that high-risk patients on Paxlovid have 87% less chance of hospitalization or death if taken within the first five days of showing Covid-19 symptoms.

However, Covid-19 levels and symptoms are shown to have reappeared after completing the treatment, raising questions about how effective Paxlovid really is.

The publication Science comments that prescriptions of Paxlovid have skyrocketed in the United States through July.

Nonetheless, scientists are concerned that Paxlovid’s popularity might be its ruin. New studies, Science points out, suggest that Covid-19 can mutate and develop more resistance against the antiviral drug.

CNN reports that, to date, cases involving Covid-19 rebound have been limited to small studies and anecdotal evidence.

According to Reuters, when researchers isolated a sample of the Omicron variant from a rebound patient, they found that it was still sensitive to Paxlovid.

The researchers concluded that those going through Covid rebound might require extended treatment.

This was Anthony Fauci’s case. After the first course of Paxlovid, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has told that his symptoms got worse after having tested negative.

Fauci’s doctor prescribed him a second run on Paxlovid, which seems to have helped him to get through the disease.

Science writes that other pharmaceutical companies are racing to complete clinical trials of their own Covid-19 treatment.

Pfizer has been criticized for not allowing Paxlovid to be easily available for trials of combination therapies. As it dominates the market, there are fears that sooner or later it may become a matter of public health.

David Ho, a virologist at Columbia University, commented to Science that when you corner a virus, it always finds a way to escape. This raises the question that if Covid-19 is confronted from a single side, that is with a single type of vaccine, how long will it take until it learns to go around it.