Paxlovid May Help Ease Long COVID Symptoms, Study Finds

Some long COVID patients who took an extended course of Paxlovid saw temporary or lasting improvement, according to a small new case series published in the journal Communications Medicine.

A previous study suggested that people who take the five-day course of Paxlovid during their infection are 25% less likely to develop long COVID. This new paper raises another question: Could Paxlovid benefit long COVID patients months after their initial infection?

The new research is at odds with a study published last summer in JAMA Internal Medicine, which found that people with long COVID likely won’t see any benefit from the drug.

Researchers don’t know why some people whose stories were featured in the new case series experienced better results. And experts cautioned that we can’t say for certain that Paxlovid drove the improvement.

“There is no certain scientific support that Paxlovid has a material impact on making people better faster when they are suffering from long COVID,” said William Schaffner, MD, professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

What the Case Series Found

The new report included stories from 13 long COVID patients who were initially infected at different points during the pandemic (and with different strains of the virus).

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines long COVID as a chronic condition that happens after acute infection and is present for at least three months.

The researchers looked at how the participants, who varied in age and health status, fared after taking an extended course of Paxlovid, and the results were mixed.

Some participants didn’t see any improvement, others saw temporary improvement, and some saw lasting improvement. The study is limited in that the authors don’t know what caused the improvement some patients experienced.

“This is all observational data, so that means we don’t know for sure that it was the extended course of Paxlovid [that helped certain people], and we don’t know what would have happened if they hadn’t tried this,” said Alison Cohen, PhD, MPH, an assistant professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, and an author of the new report.

One theory is that Paxlovid may kill lingering remnants of the virus in some people, said Dr. Schaffner. In general, though, experts said it’s impossible to guess why there are discrepancies within these results and with previous data.

Why More Research Is Needed

Either way, the research highlights the need for treatment options for long COVID patients. Some estimates suggest more than 76 million people around the world have long COVID, and the new paper states that more than 1% of all Americans have “severe activity limitations” due to long COVID.

The condition can be debilitating for people who led otherwise healthy lives before the pandemic, and more research into potential treatments is needed to help this population, Cohen said.

Future Research for Treating Long COVID

The good news is that the case study provides more information for long COVID researchers to work with—and highlights the fact that Paxlovid shouldn’t be ruled out as a potential therapy.

“It’s a case series done by investigators at good institutions, and maybe it will call this issue concerning long COVID to attention again,” Dr. Schaffner said. “It might stimulate the NIH or perhaps the drug manufacturer to actually sponsor a really rigorous double-blind study.”

Though we don’t yet have a specific treatment for long COVID, Dr. Shaffner said that experts at long COVID clinics, which exist at universities and hospitals across the country, can help people try different therapies. These can help treat symptoms they’re experiencing—like brain fog, loss of physical strength, and aches and pains—and may help them get back to normal.

If you’re experiencing symptoms three months after an initial COVID infection, you should consider reaching out, Dr. Schaffner added.