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Could widespread use of antiviral treatment curb the COVID-19 pandemic? A modeling study

Despite the development of safe and effective vaccines, effective treatments for COVID-19 disease are still urgently needed. Several antiviral drugs have shown to be effective in reducing progression of COVID-19 disease. In the present work, we use an agent-based mathematical model to assess the pot...

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Autores principales: Matrajt, Laura, Brown, Elizabeth R., Cohen, Myron S., Dimitrov, Dobromir, Janes, Holly
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8597888/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34790985
http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/2021.11.10.21266139
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author Matrajt, Laura
Brown, Elizabeth R.
Cohen, Myron S.
Dimitrov, Dobromir
Janes, Holly
author_facet Matrajt, Laura
Brown, Elizabeth R.
Cohen, Myron S.
Dimitrov, Dobromir
Janes, Holly
author_sort Matrajt, Laura
collection PubMed
description Despite the development of safe and effective vaccines, effective treatments for COVID-19 disease are still urgently needed. Several antiviral drugs have shown to be effective in reducing progression of COVID-19 disease. In the present work, we use an agent-based mathematical model to assess the potential population impact of the use of antiviral treatments in four countries with different demographic structure and current levels of vaccination coverage: Kenya, Mexico, United States (US) and Belgium. We analyzed antiviral effects on reducing hospitalization and death, and potential antiviral effects on reducing transmission. For each country, we varied daily treatment initiation rate (DTIR) and antiviral effect in reducing transmission (AVT). Irrespective of location and AVT, widespread antiviral treatment of symptomatic adult infections (≥20% DTIR) prevented the majority of COVID-19 deaths, and recruiting 6% of all adult symptomatic infections daily reduced mortality by a third in all countries. Furthermore, our model projected that targeting antiviral treatment to the oldest age group (65 years old and older, DTIR of 20%) can prevent over 47% of deaths. Our results suggest that early antiviral treatment (as soon as possible after inception of infection) is needed to mitigate transmission, preventing 50% more infections compared to late treatment (started 3 to 5 days after symptoms onset). Our results highlight the synergistic effect of vaccination and antiviral treatment: as the vaccination rate increases, antivirals have a larger relative impact on population transmission. These results suggest that antiviral treatments can become a strategic tool that, in combination with vaccination, can significantly reduce COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths and can help control SARS-CoV-2 transmission.
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spelling pubmed-85978882021-11-18 Could widespread use of antiviral treatment curb the COVID-19 pandemic? A modeling study Matrajt, Laura Brown, Elizabeth R. Cohen, Myron S. Dimitrov, Dobromir Janes, Holly medRxiv Article Despite the development of safe and effective vaccines, effective treatments for COVID-19 disease are still urgently needed. Several antiviral drugs have shown to be effective in reducing progression of COVID-19 disease. In the present work, we use an agent-based mathematical model to assess the potential population impact of the use of antiviral treatments in four countries with different demographic structure and current levels of vaccination coverage: Kenya, Mexico, United States (US) and Belgium. We analyzed antiviral effects on reducing hospitalization and death, and potential antiviral effects on reducing transmission. For each country, we varied daily treatment initiation rate (DTIR) and antiviral effect in reducing transmission (AVT). Irrespective of location and AVT, widespread antiviral treatment of symptomatic adult infections (≥20% DTIR) prevented the majority of COVID-19 deaths, and recruiting 6% of all adult symptomatic infections daily reduced mortality by a third in all countries. Furthermore, our model projected that targeting antiviral treatment to the oldest age group (65 years old and older, DTIR of 20%) can prevent over 47% of deaths. Our results suggest that early antiviral treatment (as soon as possible after inception of infection) is needed to mitigate transmission, preventing 50% more infections compared to late treatment (started 3 to 5 days after symptoms onset). Our results highlight the synergistic effect of vaccination and antiviral treatment: as the vaccination rate increases, antivirals have a larger relative impact on population transmission. These results suggest that antiviral treatments can become a strategic tool that, in combination with vaccination, can significantly reduce COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths and can help control SARS-CoV-2 transmission. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory 2022-04-04 /pmc/articles/PMC8597888/ /pubmed/34790985 http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/2021.11.10.21266139 Text en https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) , which allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator.
spellingShingle Article
Matrajt, Laura
Brown, Elizabeth R.
Cohen, Myron S.
Dimitrov, Dobromir
Janes, Holly
Could widespread use of antiviral treatment curb the COVID-19 pandemic? A modeling study
title Could widespread use of antiviral treatment curb the COVID-19 pandemic? A modeling study
title_full Could widespread use of antiviral treatment curb the COVID-19 pandemic? A modeling study
title_fullStr Could widespread use of antiviral treatment curb the COVID-19 pandemic? A modeling study
title_full_unstemmed Could widespread use of antiviral treatment curb the COVID-19 pandemic? A modeling study
title_short Could widespread use of antiviral treatment curb the COVID-19 pandemic? A modeling study
title_sort could widespread use of antiviral treatment curb the covid-19 pandemic? a modeling study
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8597888/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34790985
http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/2021.11.10.21266139
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