The Health Minister, Luis Francisco Sucre, told the press that the drug from the U.S. pharmaceutical company Pfizer will be applied immediately to the positive patients and to those who have some type of chronic disease or are candidates for complications.

Sucre said that since June 10, the country has also had 15,000 treatments of the antiviral Molnupiravir, from pharmaceutical company MSD, also from the United States.

According to the official, the drugs are distributed in all provinces.

The two oral antivirals have shown to be effective, Paxlovid reduces by 89 percent the risk of hospitalization or death of the most vulnerable patients if taken within the first three days of the onset of symptoms, according to statistics.

In this regard, the infectologist Xavier Sáez-Llorens explained that both drugs must be administered during the first three and five days of symptoms of the ailment, and that a medical prescription will be required for their use as they cannot be used in pregnant women or in children under 18 years old.

Yesterday, the National Directorate of Epidemiology registered 826 new cases in the last 24 hours for a total of 904,355 confirmed cases since the pandemic began in March 2020.

pgh/abo/mv/ga