The director of King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital warns people not to buy anti-COVID-19 drug, molnupiravir, for their own use like a science lecturer did.
Assoc Prof Dr Chanchai Sittipunt, the director of the hospital, issued the warning in response to a post by Assoc Prof Jessada Denduangboripant of the Faculty of Science at Chulalongkorn University that his family purchased molnupiravir for its own use.
Assoc Prof Dr Chanchai said that reports on consumers buying antiviral drugs for their own use and such purchases from neighboring countries raised concerns because the use of such drugs had to be supervised by doctors.
There was not enough medicine for everyone and not everyone would need it. The use of medicine, especially antivirals, had to be under doctors’ decisions to prevent problems including negative effects from medicine, Assoc Prof Dr Chanchai said.
He warned that people should not copy the practice of the lecturer who said his family member was not among vulnerable groups of people but should have the antiviral drug.
It was a personal opinion, not a doctor’s one, and any unnecessary use of medicine could result in drug resistance, Assoc Prof Dr Chanchai said.
Meanwhile, Dr Opas Karnkawinpong, director-general of the Department of Disease Control expressed concern over post-Paxlovid viral rebound.
Citing that US President Joe Biden experienced a rebound coronavirus infection following a course of Paxlovid, he said the issue of rebound cases must be monitored and that’s why antiviral drug, used in treating Covid-19 must be taken under doctor supervision. (TNA)
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