Immune Systems Advisor

Kim Mackay has resorted to giving her 11-year-old son expired children’s Tylenol desperate to ease his pain. The 44-year-old mother and her husband scoured the aisles of at least 10 pharmacies in Vancouver and Burnaby in British Columbia in search of the pain medication for their child’s pancreatitis but could not find the product on shelves. Credit: TheStar.com After friends, also on the look out, came back empty-handed, Mackay posted a plea for help on Facebook. “I managed to get some expired Tylenol from somebody, and another person had gone down to the U.S. in the last month and brought back a big pack of Tylenol so I have that too,” Mackay said, adding that she currently has enough medicine for another week or so. After that, she’s resigned to repeating her search. “It has been stressful on top of my child’s illness but I’m grateful for the people who have helped,” Mackay said. Drugstores nationwide have been grappling since May with supply shortages of over-the-counter medication...

In January 2022, Health Canada approved the use of the oral antiviral medication called PAXLOVID™. PAXLOVID™ is made of a combination of two medications: nirmatrelvir and ritonavir. PAXLOVID™ is the first oral medication authorized for outpatient use for those who have a positive result from a severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) viral test for the treatment of mild to moderate infection. PAXLOVID™ must be taken within five days of symptom onset. Currently in Canada, it is only recommended for patients who are at high risk of progressing to serious COVID-19 disease, including hospitalization or death.  How does PAXLOVID™ work?  PAXLOVID™ is made of a combination of two medications that work together to reduce or stop the replication of SARS-CoV-2. In order for a virus to make more copies of itself inside our cells, it needs to use several tools. One of these tools is an enzyme called SARS-CoV-2 3CL-like protease. This prote...