Physicians are hesitant to prescribe Paxlovid, a COVID-19 antiviral, to patients 65 and older mostly because of drug interaction worries, according to a survey conducted by Medscape.
Nearly half of the 1,500 surveyed physicians said they had not prescribed Paxlovid to older people because the patient had another medication that could not be discontinued and the drug is contraindicated with Paxlovid. In the same vein, about 2 in 5 said the risk of discontinuing a patient's medication was too high.
Concerns about the drug's rebound risk accounted for 22 percent of hesitation to prescribe the antiviral.
The public's use of Paxlovid has been declining, but this study offers a new potential explanation for its slow fall in popularity.