Kusnandar Anggadiredja
Since Covid-19 was officially announced as a global pandemic, effort to find an effective treatment for the disease has been a race against time. Various treatment regimens have been proposed and tested in clinical trials. The focus in the development of these treatment regimens is usually the effective dose of the drugs. However, as these regimens usually consist of multiple re-proposed drugs, including new drugs with minimal utilization experience, there is a potential for clinically relevant drug interactions. Moreover, a substantial proportion of the high-risk population for Covid-19 is known to have various comorbidities. Thus, polypharmacy cannot be avoided in most cases of Covid-19 management, which substantiate the potential of drug interaction. The issue of drug interaction is often overlooked, although it may potentially reduce the treatment’s effectiveness. A webinar using zoom platform was chosen as the media to provide education in this pandemic situation. There were two speakers: Emeritus Prof. David Back (University of Liverpool, United Kingdom), and Dr. apt. Neng Fisheri Kurniati (School of Pharmacy ITB) that presented a topic about drug interactions in COVID-19. The webinar was held on 1 August 2020, Based on the feedback, the participants were satisfied with this webinar, hoping that another webinar with different topic related to covid-19 in longer duration be held in the future, involving participants with more varied background.
Penerapan Karya Tulis
Since Covid-19 was officially announced as a global pandemic, effort to find an effective treatment for the disease has been a race against time. Various treatment regimens have been proposed and tested in clinical trials. The focus in the development of these treatment regimens is usually the effective dose of the drugs. However, as these regimens usually consist of multiple re-proposed drugs, including new drugs with minimal utilization experience, there is a potential for clinically relevant drug interactions. Moreover, a substantial proportion of the high-risk population for Covid-19 is known to have various comorbidities. Thus, polypharmacy cannot be avoided in most cases of Covid-19 management, which substantiate the potential of drug interaction. The issue of drug interaction is often overlooked, although it may potentially reduce the treatment’s effectiveness.