Indore: In a first in the city, two patients admitted to MRTB Hospital were administered with the antibody drug cocktail for the treatment COVID-19. The patients received the doses on Wednesday and doctors claimed that they didn't get expected results so far.
“The monoclonal antibody drug was given to the patients aged 40 and 45 years on Wednesday. These patients have been admitted to the hospital for the last 5-7 days,”respiratory medicine expert Dr Deepak Bansal told the media.
He added that the oxygen level of these patients was around 90 and they required 70 to 80 per cent of oxygen.
“Patients were administered with the dose of Casirivimab and Imdevimab through saline. As per the studies, the drug is beneficial for the patients in the early stage of COVID infection and we are still monitoring the results of the same drugs,” Dr Bansal said.
Doctors preferred to give steroids to patients in early stage as the antibody cocktail is expensive.
“We will administer the drug to patients with diabetes as steroids shoot up their blood sugar levels. We will monitor the results of the medicines in diabetic patients.
The antibody cocktail shot into the limelight after it was used to treat former United States President Donald Trump last year. The therapy is said to reduce the chance of hospitalisation by 70 per cent in patients with mild to moderate Covid-19 symptoms.
What is an antibody cocktail?
The therapy is a cocktail of two monoclonal antibodies. Monoclonal antibodies are artificially created in a laboratory and tailor-made to fight a particular disease. Casirivimab and imdevimab, which are part of the antibody cocktail produced by Switzerland-based Roche, are specifically directed against the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2. They block the virus's attachment and subsequent entry into human cells.
Woman who was given DRDO’s 2-DG to be discharged soon
The 70-year-old woman Santosh Goyal, who was given a 2-DG drug developed by DRDO, would be discharged from the hospital in a couple of days.
The family members received 10 sachets of the drug from DRDO which were given to the patient. Goyal’s son Shirish claimed that his mother got immediate relief by the drug and her oxygen dependency was reduced.
