Ontario pharmacists get greenlight to prescribe COVID-19 treatment Paxlovid | 24CA News
Starting subsequent week pharmacists in Ontario will have the ability to prescribe the antiviral drug Paxlovid as a remedy for COVID-19, the well being minister mentioned Thursday.
Sylvia Jones made the announcement at a morning news convention in Toronto, the place she mentioned the prescriptions will come for gratis to sufferers. The new coverage takes impact December 12.
There are about 4,000 pharmacists within the province who’re already allotting the drug. The prescription program will work on an opt-in foundation, so it’s unclear what number of pharmacies will select to participate.
Ontario’s chief medical officer of well being mentioned in a associated assertion the change will develop entry to the treatment, enhance safety to probably the most susceptible, and ease hospital pressures.
It’s a transfer Dr. Kieran Moore mentioned final month the federal government was contemplating partially to assist maintain folks out of hospital, particularly in rural areas the place entry to main care physicians may be restricted.
The antiviral treatment is taken orally inside 5 days of symptom onset and is really useful for folks at larger danger of COVID-19 issues, together with folks over 60 and people who find themselves immunocompromised.
The announcement comes as hospitals within the province proceed to pressure beneath strain from a number of respiratory diseases.
Across all ages, the variety of Ontarians going to emergency departments with respiratory complaints stays properly above pre-pandemic seasonal averages, in response to Ontario’s Acute Care Enhanced Surveillance (ACES) database.
Some pediatric hospitals have stopped surgical procedures and different procedures to take care of capability for sufferers looking for take care of respiratory signs.
Meanwhile, Ottawa’s kids’s hospital has accepted staffing assist from the Canadian Red Cross and opened a second pediatric intensive care unit, although others had not sought additional assist as of this week.
Throughout the flu season, Jones has insisted that the province was ready for a fall and winter surge in respiratory diseases. With respect to steps some hospitals have needed to take to take care of an inflow of sufferers, each Jones and Premier Doug Ford have credited them with “thinking outside the box” and not doing “business as usual.”
