ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — Florida Governor Ron DeSantis opened several COVID-19 monoclonal antibody treatment sites throughout the state during the summer’s delta variant surge.
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The treatment has been proven to prevent several illness, hospitalization, and death in high-risk COVID-19 patients, but now experts wonder if it’ll be as effective against the now dominant omicron strain.
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Vaccines train the immune system to battle future infections. Monoclonal antibodies, on the other hand, are used to treat the virus in people who are already sick.
Those treatments were key to keeping the summer delta surge at bay, but physicians are now left to wonder whether they’ll work with omicron infections.
“100 to 1,000 fold less effective, if not more, versus omicron compared to delta,” said Dr. Kartik Cherabuddi of the University of Florida’s Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Medicine. “Monoclonal antibodies tend to be very specific…and they tend to be one kind and therefore called monoclonal antibodies, so even small changes in the virus binding site can make them ineffective.”
The monoclonal antibody cocktails only target two spots on the spike protein of the virus, Dr. Cherabuddi says.
The body’s antibody response from vaccination targets at least five spots on the spike protein.
READ: Central Floridians looking for COVID-19 tests find long lines, empty shelves
That’s why scientists say that broader response from vaccination provides protection in the face of Omicron.
“Nothing in medicine or life is fool-proof, but it gives you a great deal of protection,” Dr. Cherabuddi said.
Another monoclonal antibody, Sotrovimab, appears to work well against omicron and will soon be distributed across the country, but the supply is low.
“The newer ones will be supplied slowly,” Dr. Cherabuddi said. “We won’t have enough for the number of cases we are clearly projecting, so that’s going to be a real concern.”
The state of Florida has received shipments of Sotrovimab as recently as September, but the Florida Department of Health has not confirmed whether more is on the way.
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CDR Maguire, which is running some of the monoclonal antibody sites, says they don’t have Sotrovimad at this time.
Both Regeneron and Eli-Lilly say they will start working on treatments that attack the omicron variant, but they won’t launch for several more months.
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