The drug usually uses the mutations to damage or kill the virus, however it has found in some patients this did not work allowing the mutated virus to spread
An antiviral drug used to treat Covid-19 patients could be linked to mutations in the virus, new research suggests. The medication, molnupiravir, works by causing mutations in the virus’s genetic information, or genome, and many of these mutations will damage or kill the virus, reducing the amount of virus in the body.
Molnupiravir was one of the first antivirals available during the Covid-19 pandemic and was widely adopted by many countries. Using global databases to map the virus mutations, the researchers found changes in the virus which looked very different from typical patterns of coronavirus >Covid mutations.
Since molnupiravir was proposed as a treatment some experts have raised concerns that it could accelerate the creation of new variants of concern. However there is no evidence it has led to this. Christopher Ruis, from the Department of Medicine at the University of Cambridge, said: “Molnupiravir is one of a number of drugs being used to fight Covid-19. It belongs to a class of drugs that can cause the virus to mutate so much that it is fatally weakened.
In England, the researchers analysed treatment data and found that at least 30% of the events involved the use of molnupiravir.