Berlin, Dec. 29 (BNA) German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said in Berlin on Tuesday that Germany has purchased one million pills to treat Covid-19 from the American pharmaceutical company Pfizer.
The German news agency (dpa) reported that the first shipments of the antiviral drug Baxilovid are expected to arrive in January, adding that the drug looked very promising.
“I expect that this will enable us to prevent many serious cases in intensive care units,” he said.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued emergency approval for Paxlovid shortly before Christmas. The German minister said his country would also give it the green light.
According to the manufacturer, patients take three tablets twice daily over five days. The drug contains the active ingredient nirmatrelvir, which inhibits the SARS-CoV-2 protein to prevent the virus from multiplying.
While experts consider drugs like Paxlovid a vital tool in the fight against Covid-19, they are much more expensive and often more difficult than vaccines.
After taking nearly 491,000 additional injections on Monday, Germany’s vaccination rate was 70.9 percent, according to the Robert Koch Institute for Disease Control. This means that 59 million people received two doses, or a single injection, of a single dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
At least 30.4 million people received a booster dose on top of that, or 36.6 percent of the population.
As the coronavirus alternative Omicron makes headway in Germany, government and public health officials have warned of an increase in new cases in January.
Shortly before Christmas, the federal and state governments agreed to remove new restrictions to slow the spread of the virus. These took effect in large parts of the country on Tuesday.
People living in the states of Bavaria, Berlin, Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia, Saarland, Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein and Thuringia were ordered to limit their contact with others.
In many places, procedures limit the number of people who can meet in one place for private gatherings, even if they have been vaccinated with 10 people. This does not include children under 14 years of age.
In the case of unvaccinated people, the limit is one family and a maximum of two people from another home.
Similar measures have already been implemented in most parts of the country.
MI