COVID-19 Care in the Community has updated the clinical guidance for COVID-19 antivirals and Primary Care COVID-19 Quick Reference Guide, and we will be grateful if you can use these to inform your care from now on. These documents will be available on the COVID-19 Advice for all health professionals webpage
None of these updates are new – they have all been communicated previously in official updates. However, the Care in the Community team has compiled this update to summarise someguidance changes that have occurred since August 2022.
Key changes in the updated COVID-19 antiviral clinical guidance are as follows:
- Latest eligibility criteria
- Considerations for holiday period
- Pharmacist-only reclassification
- Advice supporting increased use of Paxlovid
- Guidance for dosing in chronic kidney disease (CKD)
- Advice on management of drug interactions with Paxlovid
- Links to key resources
- Advice on rebound infection and re-infection
- Advice on timeliness of delivery
- Process for reporting COVID-19 positive results
- Advance prescription guidance
- Timeframe for renal function tests
- Advice that these medicines are not for treatment of long COVID
We also expect to share some new resources and information about COVID-19 antivirals soon, which you may wish to use to boost awareness of the treatments.
Key changes in the updated Primary Care COVID-19 Quick Reference Guide are as follows:
· Predicted timings for symptom onset with Omicron
· When to consider doing a PCR test
· When to test asymptomatic people
· Long COVID update and link to access the clinical guidelines for rehabilitation