NIH Releases Final Version of COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines

March 01, 2024

For nearly 4 years, the COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel (the Panel) has critically reviewed the growing body of research data on COVID-19 and used that information to develop and revise their recommendations for treating patients with this disease. The federal COVID-19 Public Health Emergency ended in May 2023, and several professional societies currently provide COVID-19 treatment guidelines for their medical specialties or subspecialties. Accordingly, NIH has now issued a final update of the COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines.

The COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines website will remain available until August 16, 2024, and will provide a downloadable PDF of the final version of the Guidelines. In preparing this final version of the Guidelines, the Panel reviewed all the sections that were not updated in the December 20, 2023, guidelines update. Major changes include:

• The Viral Rebound and Symptom Recurrence subsections in Therapeutic Management of Nonhospitalized Adults With COVID-19 and Ritonavir-Boosted Nirmatrelvir (Paxlovid) have been updated with new references. The Panel noted that concerns about the recurrence of symptoms or viral rebound should not be a reason to avoid using antiviral therapy when indicated.
• The Panel updated the discussion on the role of remdesivir in adults with COVID-19 who require mechanical ventilation or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation in Therapeutic Management of Hospitalized Adults With COVID-19.
• In Therapeutic Management of Nonhospitalized Children With COVID-19, the vaccination status categories that determine a child’s risk level have been revised. Chronic kidney disease and pregnancy were added to the list of risk factors that are associated with progression to severe COVID-19.

For a full list of updates, please see What's New in the Guidelines on the COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines website.