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The US government pushes the use of antibody treatments

2021-08-14T10:51:55.852Z


Monoclonal Antibodies, Sometimes Underused, May Remain Crucial for Severe Cases Noah Weiland and Rebecca Robbins 08/13/2021 4:16 PM Clarín.com The New York Times International Weekly Updated 08/13/2021 4:16 PM WASHINGTON - Faced with saturation of hospitals and a relentless rise in cases of the delta variant across the country, the Biden government on Thursday renewed its call on healthcare providers to use monoclonal antibody treatments, which can help COVID-19 patients w


Noah Weiland and Rebecca Robbins

08/13/2021 4:16 PM

  • Clarín.com

  • The New York Times International Weekly

Updated 08/13/2021 4:16 PM

WASHINGTON - Faced with saturation of hospitals and a relentless rise in cases of the delta variant across the country, the Biden government on Thursday renewed its

call on healthcare providers

to use monoclonal antibody treatments, which can help COVID-19 patients who are at risk of becoming seriously ill.

Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, White House adviser on racial equity in health, told a news conference that

federal

"backup teams"

deployed to the worst affected states were working to increase the acceptance and confidence in antibody drugs.

Emergency services were overwhelmed by the number of patients in Memphis, Tennessee.

Photo REUTERS / Karen Pulfer Focht

More than 600,000 people have already been administered in the United States during the pandemic, he said, preventing hospitalizations and helping save lives.

President

Donald Trump

received one of these treatments when he was diagnosed with COVID-19 last year, before its emergency use was authorized.

In states where vaccination has stalled and cases have skyrocketed, treatments have become a key component of the federal strategy to reduce the number of victims of the worst outbreaks, underscoring how many Americans

remain at risk.

The distribution of doses, which are requested by medical service providers, increased fivefold from June to July.

About 75% of the orders come from regions of the country with low vaccination rates, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

The administration "remains willing to help states and territories and jurisdictions across the country get more people connected" to treatments, Nunez-Smith said Thursday, though he stressed that vaccination remained the best option to prevent the COVID-19.

Jeffrey D. Zients, COVID-19 response coordinator at the White House, said the Biden administration has deployed more than 500 federal workers to help state health departments and hospitals combat the delta variant, including workers emergency medical teams in Louisiana and Mississippi; and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention teams in Tennessee, Illinois and Missouri.

Nunez-Smith said the administration had conducted virtual trainings on how to manage drugs for doctors and health system officials in Arizona, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming.

In Arizona, federal teams are offering the treatments at two locations, where none of the COVID-19 patients who had received them had subsequently been hospitalized.

The treatments, which the federal government pays for and makes available to patients for free, mimic the antibodies that the immune system naturally generates to fight coronavirus.

They have been shown to

dramatically reduce hospitalizations

and deaths when given to patients shortly after symptoms appear, usually by intravenous infusion.

There is also evidence that they can prevent the disease completely in certain people exposed to the virus.

 Treatment

Unlike coronavirus vaccines, which take up to six weeks to provide

complete protection,

antibody treatments can be given to patients who are already sick, with more immediate effect.

The latest data from the Department of Health and Human Services shows that just under half of the distributed supply of treatments has been used, by more than 6,000 hospitals and other provider centers, since the end of last year.

The federal government relies on providers and state health departments to report their usage figures and does not track the demographics of patients receiving the drugs.

Nunez-Smith said shipments to Florida, which is seeing a devastating increase in cases of the virus, had increased eightfold in the past month, and more than 108,000 courses of the treatments were shipped across the country in July.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday introduced a "rapid response unit" to administer Regeneron's treatment in Jacksonville, saying the state would establish similar sites in other cities.

Interest in monoclonal antibodies has been uneven throughout the pandemic. When they were licensed last year, the Regeneron and Eli Lilly treatments were expected to be in high demand and serve as a bridge in the fight against the pandemic before vaccinations escalated. They were relentlessly promoted by Trump, who called Regeneron's treatment a "cure," and by senior health officials in his administration.

Even so, they ended up sitting on refrigerator shelves in many places, even during the recent waves. Many hospitals and clinics did not make treatments a priority due to how long it took and how difficult it was to administer at the time, when it had to be done by intravenous infusion. Doctors can now administer the most widely used Regeneron treatment subcutaneously or by injection.

"These are important tools," said Dr. Dan Barouch, a virus expert at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, who has worked with Regeneron on a study that showed that the company's antibody treatment may be able to prevent COVID-19 when given to people living with someone infected with the coronavirus.

"They have shown substantial therapeutic effects."

Dr. Rajesh Gandhi, an infectious disease physician at Massachusetts General Hospital who was an investigator on that study, said the evidence for the benefit of antibody treatments had only grown in recent months.

He said that more needed to be done to educate doctors and patients about its effectiveness.

"Patients should know to call their doctors" and ask about treatments, he said.

"In 2020, people with mild COVID were told to stay home. That message must pivot toward a more proactive message."

Regeneron has aired a series of television commercials about his treatment this year.

Virtually all COVID-19 patients who receive monoclonal antibodies during the delta surge are receiving the type made by Regeneron, one of three that have been cleared by the Food and Drug Administration during the pandemic.

The company estimated last week that its treatment was reaching more than a quarter of eligible patients, up from less than 5% at the start of the pandemic.

(THE STORY CAN END HERE. OPTIONAL MATERIAL FOLLOWS).

The FDA last month extended its emergency authorization of Regeneron's treatment so that it could be used to try to prevent COVID-19 in a small number of high-risk patients. Among them are people with certain health conditions who are not vaccinated or cannot generate an adequate immune response, who have been exposed to the virus or who live in nursing homes or prisons. Previously, like the other monoclonal antibody treatments, it was only available to high-risk patients who had already tested positive for the virus.

In June, the federal government indefinitely suspended shipments of the first licensed monoclonal antibody treatment, from Eli Lilly, because new laboratory data suggested it would not work well in cases caused by beta and gamma variants.

The government has not asked for any doses of a third treatment, from GlaxoSmithKline and Vir, which so far is only being used minimally.

Kathleen Quinn, a spokeswoman for GlaxoSmithKline, said the treatment was available at health centers in 26 states and US territories.

c.2021 The New York Times Company

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Source: clarin

All news articles on 2021-08-14

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