INDEX	Thursday June 17, 2021
Treatment that might be better than lockdown
Monoclonal antibodies are a way of beefing up the body's defences against Covid 19. It's not a cheap treatment, it costs about $2,000 per patient, but compared to the cost of a stay in an intensive care unit, it's cost effective. And it may save lives.
It is thought to be particularly useful when treating patients who do not produce their own antibodies. The target group might be cancer patients and people with compromised immune systems. Promising results have been produced by Welcome's Recovery Trial, run by the University of Oxford. However, a large scale trial appears to have shown that a therapy comprising two different monoclonal antibodies could not prevent people who had come into contact with Covid 19 from developing the disease. Oddly, Donald Trump claimed that monoclonal antibodies had allowed him to resume his presidential duties, when he was rushed to hospital as a Covid 19 patient. Recent (June 16) press reports suggest that the NHS is going to be given the go ahead to use monoclonal antibodies.
Posted by Jonathan Brind.
INDEX
Wednesday June 16, 2021