"Hellhound": Antibody therapies do not work on omicron variant BQ.1.1

Created: 2022-11-24 20:03

By: Kathrin Reikowski

According to studies, antibody therapy can prevent a severe course by more than 80 percent.

© Sina Schuldt/dpa

The corona subvariant Omicron BQ.1.1 is increasing in Germany.

According to analyses, however, it is resistant to all antibody therapies.

But there are alternatives.

Göttingen (dpa) - A mononuclear antibody therapy is the great hope for many people infected with the corona virus: administered early, it reduces the likelihood of risk patients becoming seriously ill.

Among other things, an S3 doctor's guideline gives recommendations as to which drug has the best effect with which variant.

However, new therapies are apparently necessary for the treatment of the corona subvariant Omicron BQ.1.1.

All currently approved antibody therapies did not work on the "hell dog" variant, the German Primate Center announced on Wednesday in Göttingen.

The analysis by scientists from the facility and the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg is presented in the journal "The Lancet Infectious Diseases".

BQ.1.1: Patients at risk should be given an alternative in the "Hellhound" variant

Especially in regions where BQ.1.1 is widespread, doctors should not rely solely on antibody therapies when treating infected high-risk patients, but should also consider other drugs such as Paxlovid, said study leader Markus Hoffmann.

In addition, new antibody therapies would have to be developed for the new corona variant, which is also known as the "hound of hell".

Germany's most prominent virologist, Christian Drosten, sees the end of the corona pandemic coming.

But in its latest weekly report, the Robert Koch Institute pointed out that the new virus variant had quadrupled in Germany within the past four weeks.

The proportion of the pathogen was therefore eight percent.

Corona subvariant BQ.1.1 - Infection biologist recommends development of new antibody therapies against "hound of hell"

In their laboratory studies on cell cultures, the researchers found that BQ.1.1 could not be neutralized either by individual antibodies or by antibody cocktails.

Other subtypes were already immune to some preparations.

The cause of the resistances are mutations of the so-called spike protein of the corona virus, it said.

"The ever-increasing resistance development of Sars-CoV-2 variants makes it necessary to develop new antibody therapies that are particularly tailored to the currently circulating and future virus variants," explained Stefan Pöhlmann, head of the Infection Biology department at the Primate Center the corona pandemic.

"Ideally, they should target regions in the spike protein that have little potential for escape mutations." (dpa/kat)