Real-world effectiveness of Nirmatrelvir in protecting Long COVID for outpatient adult patients - A large-scale observational cohort study from the RECOVER Initiative
Zang, C; Li, H; Khullar, D; et al., PLOS Global Public Health, October 2026
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Publication Details
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgph.0005771
Abstract
Paxlovid (nirmatrelvir/ritonavir) has been approved for use in patients who are at high risk for severe acute COVID-19 illness. Evidence regarding whether acute use of Paxlovid protects against Post-Acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC), or Long COVID, is mixed in high-risk patients and lacking in low-risk patients. With a target trial emulation framework, we evaluated the association of Paxlovid treatment within 5 days of SARS-CoV-2 infection with incident Long COVID and hospitalization or death from any cause in the post-acute period (30-180 days after infection) using electronic health records from the Patient-Centered Clinical Research Networks (PCORnet) RECOVER repository. The study population included 497,499 SARS-CoV-2 positive patients between March 1, 2022, to February 28, 2023. For those who had at least 1 risk factor for severe COVID-19 illness, 159,659 were treated with at least one dose of Paxlovid within 5 days since infection and 272,048 were not treated with Paxlovid or other COVID-19 treatments during the acute infection period. Compared with the non-treated group, Paxlovid treatment was associated with reduced risk of Long COVID with a Hazard Ratio (HR) of 0.88 (95% CI, 0.87 to 0.89) and absolute risk reduction of 2.99 events per 100 persons (95% CI, 2.65 to 3.32). For those without documented risk factors, the associations (HR, 1.03, 95% CI 0.95 to 1.11; risk increase 0.80 events per 100 persons, 95% CI -0.84 to 2.45) were inconclusive. High-risk, nonhospitalized adult patients with COVID-19 who were treated with Paxlovid within 5 days of SARS-CoV-2 infection had a lower risk of Long COVID and all-cause hospitalization or death in the post-acute period. However, Long COVID risk reduction with Paxlovid was not observed in low-risk patients.Authors
Chengxi Zang, Haoyang Li, Dhruv Khullar, Yongkang Zhang, Stephenson Strobel, Yong Chen, Marc A Sala, Payal Bharat Patel, Alejandro P Comellas, Andrew Wylam, Mark Weiner, Chris B Forrest, Thomas Carton, Fei Wang, Rainu Kaushal, RECOVER Consortium
Keywords
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