WHO recommends treatment combining two antibodies for some Covid Patients

September 24

Two antibodies for some Covid Patients

World Health Organisation has on Friday recommended a treatment combining two antibodies — casirivimab and imdevimab for Covid-19. But it has recommended with certain conditions for use of these medicines.

This can be used in non-severe patients (the condition being patients’ risk of severe disease: patients at highest risk represent good candidates for use of the intervention); and a conditional recommendation in favour of use in the severe and critically ill (the condition being seronegative status).

The GDG panel, however, urged drug producing companies and governments to address the high price and limited production of the antibody combination and ensure safe and appropriate handling of the medicine.

Casirivimab and imdevimab are monoclonal antibodies that when used together bind to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, neutralising the virus’s ability to infect cells.

For all other Covid-19 patients, any benefits of this antibody treatment are unlikely to be meaningful, the experts wrote.

They also recognised the possibility that new variants may emerge in which casirivimab and imdevimab antibodies may have reduced effect.