Abstract:
We conducted a retrospective cohort study to assess whether treatment with nirmatrelvir/ritonavir was associated with a reduced risk of long COVID. We enrolled 500 adults with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 who were eligible for nirmatrelvir/ritonavir; 250 who took nirmatrelvir/ritonavir and 250 who did not. The primary outcome was the development of one or more of eleven prespecified long COVID symptoms, assessed through a structured telephone interview four months after the positive SARS-CoV-2 test. Multivariable logistic regression models controlled for age, sex, race/ethnicity, chronic conditions, and COVID-19 vaccination status.
We found that participants who took nirmatrelvir/ritonavir were no less likely to develop long COVID symptoms, compared to those who did not take the medication (44% vs. 49.6%, p = 0.21). Taking nirmatrelvir/ritonavir was associated with a lower odds of two of the eleven long COVID symptoms, brain fog (OR 0.58, 95% CI 0.38-0.88) and chest pain/tightness (OR 0.51, 95% CI 0.28-0.91). Our finding that treatment with nirmatrelvir/ritonavir was not associated with a lower risk of developing long COVID is different from prior studies that obtained data only from electronic medical records.
Source: Congdon S, Narrowe Z, Yone N, Gunn J, Deng Y, Nori P, Cowman K, Islam M, Rikin S, Starrels J. Nirmatrelvir/ritonavir and risk of long COVID symptoms: a retrospective cohort study. Sci Rep. 2023 Nov 11;13(1):19688. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-46912-4. PMID: 37951998; PMCID: PMC10640584. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10640584/ (Full text)