Merck's Covid Pill Hailed after Cutting Hospitalizations by 50%

Capsules of the experimental antiviral drug Molnupiravir. (AFP)
Capsules of the experimental antiviral drug Molnupiravir. (AFP)
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Merck's Covid Pill Hailed after Cutting Hospitalizations by 50%

Capsules of the experimental antiviral drug Molnupiravir. (AFP)
Capsules of the experimental antiviral drug Molnupiravir. (AFP)

US pharmaceutical company Merck said Friday it will seek authorization of its oral drug molnupiravir for Covid-19 after it was shown to reduce the chance newly infected patients were hospitalized by 50 percent.

A simple pill to treat the coronavirus has been sought since the start of the pandemic and Friday's announcement was hailed as a major step towards that goal.

"With these compelling results, we are optimistic that molnupiravir can become an important medicine as part of the global effort to fight the pandemic," said Robert Davis, the company's CEO and president, in a statement.

Anthony Fauci, chief medical advisor to President Joe Biden, told reporters "the data are impressive," and highlighted that the trial results showed there were no deaths among patients who received the drug compared to eight deaths in the placebo group.

The US has procured 1.7 million courses of molnupiravir should it be greenlighted, with the option to buy more, according to Jeff Zients, White House Covid coordinator.

Until now, Covid therapeutics such as monoclonal antibodies and Gilead's remdesivir have been administered intravenously, which holds back their widespread global use.

But experts also cautioned they would like to see the complete underlying data, and stressed that if eventually approved the drug should complement highly effective vaccines, rather than replace them.

Compelling results
In a late stage clinical trial, Merck and its partner Ridgeback Therapeutics evaluated data from around 770 patients -- roughly half of whom received either a five-day course of the pill, while the other received a placebo.

All the patients had lab-confirmed Covid-19 with symptoms that developed within five days of them being assigned to their respective groups.

Of the patients who received molnupiravir, 7.3 percent were hospitalized by day 29, compared to 14.1 percent of those on a placebo -- a relative risk reduction of around 50 percent.

Efficacy was said to hold up against variants of concern, including Delta, in the 40 percent of participants for whom sequencing data was available.

The drug had a good safety profile, with the frequency of adverse events approximately equal between the drug and placebo groups.

The results were compelling enough that an independent data monitoring committee in consultation with the FDA decided to halt the trial early, which could indicate they felt it would be unethical to continue with a placebo arm.

Merck said it plans to submit an application for an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to the FDA as soon as possible based on these findings and plans to submit marketing applications to other regulatory bodies worldwide.

Response from the medical community was favorable, with some notes of caution.

Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, wrote on Twitter the fact the results were so positive the trial was stopped "would be considered a Eureka moment in the fight against Covid."

But "this is no substitute for vaccination. It's not a miracle cure but a companion tool," tweeted Peter Hotez, dean of Texas Children's Hospital.

Experts also said it would be crucial to administer the drug early for it to be effective. Since it isn't always clear who is at risk for developing severe disease, it would have the greatest impact if it is cheap enough and safe enough to distribute widely.

Broad application
Molnupiravir belongs to a class of antiviral drugs called "polymerase inhibitors," which work by targeting an enzyme that viruses need to copy their genetic material, and introducing mutations that leave them unable to replicate.

"Viruses are basically little machines and they need certain components to replicate themselves," Daria Hazuda, Merck's chief scientific officer of the company's exploratory science center, told AFP in a recent interview. Antivirals disrupt the machinery.

Such drugs are expected to be more variant-proof than monoclonal antibody treatments, which target a surface protein of the virus that is continually evolving.

Molnupiravir was initially developed as an inhibitor of influenza and respiratory syncytial virus, two other important acute respiratory infections, by a team at Emory University.

"If it is proven to be very safe and proven to be effective, then it can be used broadly, irrespective of the diagnosis, to treat and prevent multiple respiratory infections," added Hazuda.



Rwanda-backed M23 Rebels Occupy 2nd Major City in Congo's East

A general view of pedestrians walking in a street in Bukavu on December 17, 2025. (Photo by Amani Alimasi / AFP)
A general view of pedestrians walking in a street in Bukavu on December 17, 2025. (Photo by Amani Alimasi / AFP)
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Rwanda-backed M23 Rebels Occupy 2nd Major City in Congo's East

A general view of pedestrians walking in a street in Bukavu on December 17, 2025. (Photo by Amani Alimasi / AFP)
A general view of pedestrians walking in a street in Bukavu on December 17, 2025. (Photo by Amani Alimasi / AFP)

Rwanda-backed rebels have occupied a second major city in mineral-rich eastern Congo, the government said Sunday, as M23 rebels confirmed they were in the city to restore order after it was abandoned by Congolese forces.
The Congo River Alliance, a coalition of rebel groups that includes the M23, said in a statement that its fighters “decided to assist the population of Bukavu” in addressing its security challenges under the “old regime” in the city of 1.3 million people, The Associated Press reported.
"Our forces have been working to restore the security for the people and their property, much to the satisfaction of the entire population,” alliance spokesperson Lawrence Kanyuka said in a statement.
The rebels saw little resistance from government forces against the unprecedented expansion of their reach after years of fighting. Congo's government vowed to restore order in Bukavu but there was no sign of soldiers. Many were seen fleeing on Saturday alongside thousands of civilians.
The M23 are the most prominent of more than 100 armed groups vying for control of eastern Congo’s trillions of dollars in mineral wealth that's critical for much of the world's technology. The rebels are supported by about 4,000 troops from neighboring Rwanda, according to the United Nations experts.
The fighting has displaced more than 6 million people in the region, creating the world's largest humanitarian crisis.
Bernard Maheshe Byamungu, one of the M23 leaders who has been sanctioned by the UN Security Council for rights abuses, stood in front of the South Kivu governor’s office in Bukavu and told residents they have been living in a “jungle."
“We are going to clean up the disorder left over from the old regime,” Byamungu said, as some in the small crowd of young men cheered the rebels on to “go all the way to Kinshasa," Congo's capital, nearly 1,000 miles away.
Congo's communications ministry in a statement on social media acknowledged for the first time that Bukavu had been “occupied” and said the national government was “doing everything possible to restore order and territorial integrity” in the region.
One Bukavu resident, Blaise Byamungu, said the rebels marched into the city that had been “abandoned by all the authorities and without any loyalist force."
“Is the government waiting for them to take over other towns to take action? It’s cowardice,” Byamungu added.
Unlike in 2012, when the M23 briefly seized Goma and withdrew after international pressure, analysts have said the rebels this time are eyeing political power.
The fighting in Congo has connections with a decadeslong ethnic conflict. The M23 says it is defending ethnic Tutsis in Congo. Rwanda has claimed the Tutsis are being persecuted by Hutus and former militias responsible for the 1994 genocide of 800,000 Tutsis and others in Rwanda. Many Hutus fled to Congo after the genocide and founded the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda militia group.
Rwanda says the militia group is “fully integrated” into the Congolese military, which denies it.
But the new face of the M23 in the region — Corneille Nangaa — is not Tutsi, giving the group “a new, more diverse, Congolese face, as M23 has always been seen as a Rwanda-backed armed group defending Tutsi minorities,” according to Christian Moleka, a political scientist at the Congolese think tank Dypol.
Congo’s President Felix Tshisekedi, whose government on Saturday asserted that Bukavu remained under its control, has warned of the risk of a regional expansion of the conflict.
Congo's forces were being supported in Goma by troops from South Africa and in Bukavu by troops from Burundi. But Burundi's president, Evariste Ndayishimiye, appeared to suggest on social media his country would not retaliate in the fighting.
The conflict was high on the African Union summit's agenda in Ethiopia over the weekend, with UN Secretary-General António Guterres warning it risked spiraling into a regional conflagration.
Still, African leaders and the international community have been reluctant to take decisive action against M23 or Rwanda, which has one of Africa's most powerful militaries. Most continue to call for a ceasefire and a dialogue between Congo and the rebels.