World November 8, 2021 | 3:13 pm

Pfizer presents a pill reducing risk of covid deaths

FILE - This Feb. 5, 2021, file photo shows the Pfizer logo displayed at the company's headquarters in New York. Pfizer says its experimental pill for COVID-19 cut rates of hospitalization and death by nearly 90% among patients with mild-to-moderate infections. The company announced Friday, Nov. 5, it will soon ask the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and international regulators to authorize its pill, which is taken twice a day for five days. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

Cheers. To speed up the fight against the coronavirus

The drug reduces the risk of death from COVID-19 for those infected with comorbidities by almost 90%, a promising result that its executives highlight.

Pfizer on Friday unveiled a pill that reduces the risk of death from COVID-19 by nearly 90 percent for those infected with comorbidities, a promising result that its executives believe will lead to a “tipping point” in the fight against the pandemic.

The pharmaceutical company revealed in a statement the preliminary data of a study with 1,219 people, which shows the effectiveness of its pill to prevent patients at high risk of seriously ill with covid-19 – including the unvaccinated – need to being hospitalized or dying.

The study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, concludes that patients who took the Pfizer pill along with another antiviral had an 89% reduction in their combined rate of hospitalization or subsequent death compared to patients who took a placebo.

The company gave the volunteers the experimental drug every 12 hours for five days in different groups, starting three and five days after they had symptoms, and combined it with a low dose of the antiviral ritonavir, which is commonly used to treat HIV and acts as an enhancer.

After 28 days, no patients in the overall study who had received the Pfizer treatment had died, compared with 10 who did after receiving placebo, according to the release.

The medical director of Latin America for Pfizer’s Hospital Products Unit, Rafael Valdez, told Efe that the study results represent a “turning point” if a “joint strategy” of vaccines, antivirals, preventive measures such as masks and follow-up of cases is followed.

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The “overwhelming effectiveness” of the preliminary data led independent experts to recommend Pfizer stop searching for more participants, and now plans to turn the information “as soon as possible” to U.S. authorities for emergency use.