A year behind schedule: Coronavirus drugs could reach pharmacies soon
Estonia has taken delivery of 4,000 packages of coronavirus drug Paxlovid, with the Health Insurance Fund working on making sure the drug reaches pharmacies as quickly as possible.
"A total of 4,000 boxes of Paxlovid have reached Estonia. The drug will be made available to hospitalized risk group patients to avoid progression of the disease from the first week of January. We will announce the date of its arrival in pharmacies once we have it," Sander Rajamäe, press representative for the Health Insurance Fund, said.
The fund is working to expedite the prescription drug reaching pharmacies as soon as possible.
Estonia participated in the EU common tender for Paxlovid that was heavily drawn out.
The Health Board's emergency headquarters head Ragnar Vaiknemets told ERR in late summer that once Covid drugs become available from pharmacies, the coronavirus could be redefined from a novel and dangerous infectious disease to a common one.
Vaiknemets explained that according to the Communicable Diseases Prevention and Control Act (NETS), a novel and dangerous infectious disease is one that has no effective or obtainable treatment or treating which could exceed hospitals' capacity.
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Editor: Aleksander Krjukov, Marcus Turovski
