Tara Vijayan, MD: Targeting the Right Population for COVID-19 Treatments

More than 2 years into the COVID-19 pandemic, clinicians might be finally confortable with the treatment options outside of the obvious benefits of vaccinations.

Treatments like monoclonal antibodies and paxlovid have shown much promising in reducing mortality for hospitalized patients with COVID-19.

In a keynote address during Pri-Med West 2022 in Anaheim, Tara Vijayan, MD, assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases and medical director of antimicrobial stewardship at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, talked about some of the novel COVID-19 treatments and the associated problems with drug scarcity in the midst of a global pandemic.

In an interview with HCPLive®, Vijayan explained how it is crucial to target certain high-risk populations with these patients that could have an overall public health impact during the pandemic.

Overall, Vijayan said she is comfortable with certain aspects of treatments, including having options to reduce hospitalizations and mortality. However, there needs to be more attention paid to treatment as a form of prevention in addition to the vaccine.

She also said the current antivirals are difficult to scale for those types of outcomes.

Finally, Vijayan talked about the role the pharmacist in COVID-19 drug stewardship.