Merck & Co.’s COVID-19 antivirals are getting a new lease of life in post-pandemic China, as cat owners are seizing them as an antidote to the deadly disease caused by the coronavirus, which infects their feline companions. Does.
Local media outlet Ziemian reported this week that people are feeding their furry friends maracas to treat feline infectious peritonitis, a deadly disease that had no readily available treatment until recently.
The move has been a hot topic on social media, with thousands of cat lovers taking to Xiahongshu, China’s version of Instagram, to discuss how the drugs saved their pets, while also spending money on expensive veterinary bills.
“COVID-19 drugs for humans saved my cat’s life,” one user wrote on Xiaohongshu. “I share the notes here to teach more people how to save their furry babies and reduce the pain caused to cats.”
Apart from foreign antiviral drugs, some pet owners have also opted for similar but cheaper Covid drugs developed by domestic companies including Henan Genuine Biotech Co, Simsare Pharmaceutical Group Ltd and Shanghai Junshi Biosciences Co.
A Merck spokesperson said in an email response to Bloomberg News that the company has not tested the drug on cats and has no plans to do so.
The use of human Covid drugs on animals by Chinese pet owners is a sharp contrast to the early days of the pandemic, when people in the US used ivermectin – a drug to treat parasitic worms in animals – prompted the US Food and Drug Administration . Post words of caution: “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Stop it.”
Feline infectious peritonitis is a viral disease caused by the so-called feline coronavirus that infects white blood cells before spreading throughout the cat’s body, causing inflammatory reactions. This disease is fatal without treatment. FIP is unique to cats, and is not contagious to people, dogs, or other animals.
Until recently no specific treatment was available. Some antiviral drugs have proven effective, but they are not widely available. The most popular, GS-441524, developed by Gilead Sciences, is not approved by the FDA, and cat owners often seek the drug through black market sources.
Chinese cat owners have to rely on informal networks to purchase GS-441524, which often costs thousands of yuan. On Chinese social media, many people complain that the drug is too expensive and that many black market sellers have supplied them with counterfeit versions.
Human COVID antivirals are much more affordable, he said. For example, a bottle of 40 tablets of Lagevrio costs about 1,725 yuan ($236) online, and that’s enough to treat more than one cat. In addition to medications, Chinese cat owners also feed their pets nutritional supplements developed for humans, as they are cheaper than veterinary drugs.
“I don’t understand why pet medications are so expensive,” wrote one Xiahongshu user. “You just need to adjust the dosage of the human medications if you’re going to use them on cats.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
