At-risk Ottawa woman with COVID-19 left waiting for antiviral treatment – CBC

Friday marks at least 5 days since Amy Ferguson’s symptoms began

Apr 01, 2022

An Ottawa woman who is immunocompromised says she’s been waiting since Tuesday to fill her prescription for the antiviral COVID-19 drug Paxlovid — a treatment that needs to begin within three to five days of symptom onset to be effective.

Amy Ferguson has rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune disease that puts her in the high-risk category of patients with COVID-19.

She found out Monday that a friend she’d had contact with had COVID, she said. Ferguson was experiencing mild symptoms, similar to those caused by rheumatoid arthritis, took a rapid test and said it came back as a “faint positive.”

She woke up Tuesday morning to worsening symptoms, took another rapid test that also came back positive, and called Ottawa Public Health to get isolation information for her and her family.

Then she called her family doctor’s clinic and spoke to a physician, who prescribed her Paxlovid.

Since then, she and that physician have been trying to figure out how to get their hands on the treatment.

Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ottawa-woman-high-risk-paxlovid-1.6404384