Corona treatment, targeting the elderly and immunocompromised
No support or quarantine leave even if confirmed due to financial burden
“Can spread to family and workplace… Must be tested to avoid transmission”
As the number of COVID-19 cases surges during the summer, diagnostic kits and treatments are becoming scarce. Experts advise that even ordinary people who cannot receive COVID-19 treatments should be tested and isolated to prevent transmission to high-risk groups.
According to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency on the 15th, the number of COVID-19 hospitalized patients in the first week of August was 861, the highest in six months since 875 in the first week of February. This is a more than nine-fold increase compared to 91 in the first week of July, a month ago.
Treatments for COVID-19 include Lagebrio, Paxrobide, and Veklury. Among these, Veklury is an intravenous treatment, while Lagebrio and Paxrobide are oral medications.
Both drugs, which are oral treatments, have certain contraindications. Paxrobid is administered to patients over 60 years of age, or immunocompromised patients over 12 years of age, or patients with underlying diseases. According to the guidelines of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, the principle is to prescribe Paxrobid first when administering oral treatments. There are 37 drugs that should not be taken together, and 26 of them have domestically approved pharmaceutical ingredients.
Lagebrio is much easier to use than Paxrobide because it has a limited list of prohibited drugs, but it is also prescribed for patients aged 60 years or older, or those aged 18 years or older with immunosuppression or underlying diseases.
Ultimately, adults under the age of 60 or infants and toddlers are not able to receive specialized treatment even if they are infected with COVID-19.
Hong Jeong-ik, director of the Infectious Disease Policy Bureau at the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, also answered “yes” to a question about whether COVID-19 patients can take common cold medicine in an interview on a radio program on the 13th, saying, “Young people should rest, drink plenty of water, and control fever and headaches with fever reducers like they would with other respiratory infections.”
The problem is that this leaves younger people with no incentive to get tested for COVID-19. In the past, if you were diagnosed with COVID-19, you would receive sick leave, paid vacation, or quarantine support, but now the quarantine support system has disappeared, and sick leave and paid vacation vary from company to company.
Here, the support for COVID-19 testing costs has also disappeared as the COVID-19 legal infectious disease level has been lowered, so ordinary people have to pay around 10,000 to 30,000 won per test at the member-level.
Experts agree that testing of young people is necessary, if only to prevent transmission among high-risk groups.
According to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, the KP.3 variant currently leading the epidemic is not known to have a high possibility of affecting the severeness rate or mortality rate compared to the existing virus, but the disease burden is still high among the elderly, with 1 in 1,000 people in their 60s, 2 to 3 in 1,000 people in their 70s, and 1 in 100 people aged 80 or older deteriorating into a critically ill patient.
Professor Cheon Eun-mi of the Department of Respiratory Medicine at Daemok Hospital said, “Because you can infect others through your family or workplace, you should get tested and isolate yourself, and if you are infected, you should rest for 3 to 5 days.”
Jeong Jae-hoon, a professor of preventive medicine at Korea University College of Medicine, said, “You need to get tested so that you don’t spread it to people around you.”
[서울=뉴시스]
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2024-08-15 10:37:42