The pharmaceutical giant Merck presents the anti-Covid pill and will ask “as soon as possible” the emergency authorization from the Food and Drug Administration, the US regulatory body. The antiviral drug promises to halve hospitalizations of people at high risk. It can be taken at home, like any other pill. The phase III study involving 750 people also describe important efficacy against the Gamma, Delta and Mu variants. From Italy, Matteo Bassetti, director of the San Martino Infectious Diseases Clinic in Genoa identifies a “clear validity of the drug in halving the cases of hospitalization or death”. The Italian center has enrolled a patient in the study.

To talk about “promising results to be carefully underestimated “is the Director of Prevention of the Ministry of Health Gianni Rezza which, in the past few hours, has expressed itself on the third heterologous dose for i Sputnik vaccinated or Sinovac. “The Superior Health Council – he explains – is considering the opportunity of an additional heterologous dose, but the pronouncement of a regulatory agency “. This especially in the case of Sputnik which, unlike Sinovac, is not recognized by the WHO.

Meanwhile, right there hope getting back to normal with vaccines leads to one reveal psychological distress linked to the pandemic. At the root of the problems, explains the Italian Society of Psychiatry, there are the inequalities generated by the lockdown that have affected especially the most fragile groups. But at the same time, the experts continue, the population begins to feel more confident of the future, also given the vaccines and a lower risk of returning to an October like last year.