WHO recommends new coronavirus treatment for those at risk

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommended this Thursday the combined use of the drugs casirivimab and imdevimab, using monoclonal antibodies, to treat non-serious cases of coronavirus at risk of hospitalization, although he has asked the company that manufactures them to facilitate its access, given its high cost.

The treatment is recommended for patients “presenting non-severe symptoms of covid and at high risk of hospitalization”, as is the case with the elderly or those with immunodeficiency problems (who have cancer or have just had a transplant, for example).

The opinion of WHO experts was published in the medical journal The BMJ.

“For all other types of covid-19 patients, the benefits of such antibody therapy are unlikely to be significant.The BMJ explained in its press release.

Both drugs are produced by the American company Regeneron and they were the ones used last year by the then President of the United States, Donald trump, when he contracted covid-19, although treatment with them, without health coverage, it can cost thousands of dollars.

In its update of the guidelines for the management of patients with coronavirus, WHO has decided to include this cocktail of monoclonal antibodies, which it also recommends in severe and critical cases of the disease, but only if the affected person does not have antibodies against them.

This is the first treatment recommended by the WHO in non-severe cases of covid-19, since until now he had only two drugs on his list, and only for patients in severe or critical condition: corticosteroids like dexamethasone (cheap and available worldwide) and antagonists of interleukin-6, much more expensive.

Other treatments tested last year (hydroxychloroquine, remdesivir, interferon, lopinavir, ritonavir, ivermectin) were ruled out due to their limited effect in patients., although WHO is currently conducting medical tests with three other candidates (artesunate, imatinib and infliximab).

After inclusion of monoclonal antibodies, The WHO in a statement called on the manufacturing company and governments to make efforts to lower its price and increase its access to all marketsespecially in low and middle income countries.

A similar petition launched Médecins sans frontières (MSF), which demanded that Regeneron “take immediate action to ensure that medicines are affordable and accessible to all who need them, avoiding monopolizing these new treatments.”

Demonstration of the Covid-19 antibody cocktail from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. reduce the mortality of hospitalized patients who did not generate their own antibody response, according to a large British study published last June.

Trial found antibody treatment reduced 28-day mortality of people admitted to hospital with COVID-19 by a fifth whose immune system has not generated an antibody response, called seronegative.

The result is six fewer deaths per 100 HIV negative patients treated with the therapy, the researchers said.

Monoclonal antibodies are man-made proteins that have also been used in the treatment of certain types of cancerAlthough MSF says companies’ attempts to create similar versions of these products have often encountered regulatory hurdles due to possible patent infringement.

(With information from EFE and AFP)

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