A REVIEW on the need to source different types of antiviral drugs to treat Covid-19 patients will be carried out by the government, says Deputy Health Minister Datuk Dr Noor Azmi Ghazali.

       This follows recent announcements by manufacturers Pfizer and AstraZeneca on their success at producing Covid-19 antiviral drugs, he said.

       “In line with this, the Health Ministry will review the purchase of antiviral drugs to adapt to its needs.

       “This will be done according to the availability of the RM172mil allocation approved for the purchase of Covid-19 medicine,” he said when replying to a question raised by Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad (PH-Kuala Selangor) in Dewan Rakyat yesterday.

       He clarified the decision to procure 150,000 courses of Molnupiravir from Merck Sharp & Dohme in early October was because that was the only oral Covid-19 antiviral drug at that time.

       In November this year, Pfizer applied for emergency authorisation for the use of its antiviral drug Paxlovid in the United States after data showed that it was 89% effective at preventing Covid-19 hospitalisations and deaths.

       In October, the European Medicines Agency said it had started evaluating AstraZeneca’s anti-Covid-19 cocktail called Evusheld.

       The drug is said to significantly reduce severe Covid-19 cases or deaths in non-hospitalised patients with mild to moderate symptoms.

       On Oct 7, Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin announced an agreement to purchase Molnupiravir.

       This decision, he said, was in preparation for Malaysia’s move into the endemic phase and living with the Covid-19 virus.

       Research conducted by Merck showed that Molnupiravir is able to reduce 50% of hospital admissions and is effective against more infectious variants of Covid-19 including Gamma, Delta and Mu.

       The antiviral pill will be given free of charge to Covid-19 patients who are symptomatic for at least five days or category three, four and five patients.

       On a separate issue, Dr Noor Azmi said the ministry was at the final stage of the tender process to procure 460 ambulances and related equipment to address the issue of shortages of ambulances in certain areas in the country.

       He said the ambulances would be deployed to areas in need most in phases.