DGHS instructs all public hospitals to prescribe anti-Covid pill Molnupiravir

The Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) has issued instructions to all public hospitals to prescribe oral anti-Covid drug Molnupiravir today.

The development comes weeks after the drug administration gave emergency production and usage approval to the world's first oral anti-Covid drug in the local market.

"We have instructed all public hospitals that the physicians can use the drug to treat Covid-19 among adult patients with mild to moderate symptoms. It cannot be used on patients with severe symptoms," Dr Farid Hossain Mian, director of hospitals and clinics at the DGHS, told The Daily Star tonight.

Earlier on November 8, the drug administration gave emergency production and usage approval to multiple drug-makers in the country.

The drug, however, must be used within five days of symptoms emerging in a patient, Dr Farid said.

Developed by American pharmaceuticals companies Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, the pills are designed to be taken as soon as possible after a positive coronavirus test and within five days of the onset of symptoms -- a time when the virus is replicating rapidly and the immune system has not yet mounted a defence.

Patients will take four capsules twice a day for five days, so the full course would cost around Tk 2,000, according to the price of the drug in the local market.