'I'm optimistic.' ECU participating in research on Merck COVID-19 pill

Greenville has struggled with vaccine hesitancy, and researchers said they hope that this treatment is a game-changer.

"We want to see that we can use this drug like we use Tamiflu for the influenza," said clinical trial study coordinator Allison Geigel.

This week, ECU's infectious diseases clinic started accepting patients into the study.

"We're going to be studying the drug to effectively evaluate whether it can be used as a preventative treatment for household transmission," explained Geigel.

Participants in the study have to be unvaccinated and test negative for coronavirus, but be living with someone who's currently infected.

The participants will take four pills - twice a day - for five days. Then, for the next four weeks, researchers will monitor whether they end up getting the virus.

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If they do, researchers will evaluate how serious their symptoms are.

"Did they have to go to the hospital? Did they develop fever? Did they develop cough? So, there's going to be a lot of follow-up of what symptoms they have over this basically 30-day period," said Dr. Paul Cook, the division chief of infectious diseases at ECU.

ECU researchers said they're hoping to see evidence that the pill would be an effective way to keep coronavirus from infecting everyone living in a home if it were approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

"We can send them home with a prescription for themselves and their families to keep the person whose already contracted COVID from needing hospitalization, and then, hopefully, keep the rest of the household from getting sick in the first place," said Geigel.

Geigel said that, while COVID-19 vaccines are proven to be safe and effective in stopping patients who test positive from becoming severely sick, the pill could do a better job of targeting the places in the body where the virus replicates and spreads.

"It could be a second line of defense for them to keep them from getting so sick that they could end up in the hospital or die," she said.

"This would maybe be more effective in preventing transmission because we do know that, at least against the delta variant, the persons who are vaccinated probably are still able to have the virus replicate in their pharynx," said Cook. "These injectable vaccinates that we have are extremely good at preventing people from getting very sick from the virus, but they may not be very effective in preventing replication of it in the nose and the pharynx."

The study on Merck's COVID-19 pills was born out researchers' knowledge of how antiviral drugs work.

"This is not a new idea. We've got antiviral medication for different viruses," said Cook.

Merck's pills have also been shown to reduce the risk of hospitalization or death from COVID-19 by 50 percent. Researchers said that could be a difference maker in eastern North Carolina, where vaccination rates are some of the lowest in the state.

"We do have a large population that are vaccine-hesitant, and what the goal will be with this is to lessen the number of folks having to go into the hospital [by] using a different treatment option," said Geigel.

"This is not a substitute for the vaccine, but it can be used in persons who are vaccine-hesitant or immunocompromised and might not develop an immune response," said Cook. "I'm optimistic, cautiously optimistic about this one."

Researchers stress the pills aren't a substitute for the vaccine, which is still the most effective way to fight COVID-19, and that it's going to take some time before we get results since the study won't wrap up until March.