Direct Last minute on the coronavirus
Health: This is how dexamethasone works, the 'anticovid' drug that Donald Trump receives
In hours, Donald Trump has gone from taking just dexamethasone to signing up to test a
unique
antibody cocktail
to fight SARS-CoV-2.
This, as experts point out, can be attributed to a physical condition of the president that is not as "optimal", as he himself appears with his departure from the hospital.Trump would have become part of the trial that the Regeneron company carries out in 86 centers in the US, and that in Europe, is tested in the framework of studies at the University of Ox
ford in
Recovery
, which compares all the formulas used against the
covid-19
.
The biopharmaceutical would count on the Swiss Roche for subsequent distribution.
At the moment, the American laboratory plans to include 3,000 patients, from June 2020 to completion in January 2021.
Why use an exclusive antibody to Trump?
As Jesús Sierra explains, he is coordinator of the Pharmacotherapy Registry in COVID Patients of the Spanish Society of Hospital Pharmacy (SEFH), "it is about
a very specific drug that is made for SARS-COV-2: REGN-COV2
.
They are antibodies that are directed to surface proteins of the virus.
A pathogen always enters a cell using anchors, which are those surface proteins, and these are directed to specific points of the organism that it is going to infect ". For this reason, Sierra explains that its mechanism of action:" In this case , what these antibodies are going to do is bind to these anchors to
prevent the virus from entering the cell
.
Initially, if you are not infected, you can prevent infection, but if you are already, what you avoid is the spread in the body. "
Could it help prevent SARS-COV-2 infection?
"Right now it is not used to prevent infection, it is not used that way," Sierra insists.
"Our body has the capacity by itself to synthesize these antibodies. In fact, these antibodies are produced when the virus is injected into an organism. Afterwards, the substances that it has synthesized among the immune cells are searched and their real binding capacity that they have is studied. to the virus.
Once selected, they are manufactured on a large scale and administered therapeutically
What is true is that little is known about the efficacy of this drug designed
ad hoc
against the pandemic virus.
A study, a
preprint
(which lacks the necessary peer review), reflects the efficacy in animal models.
In it, the authors (belonging to the American company) describe REGN-COV2 as a cocktail of two powerful neutralizing antibodies (REGN10987 + REGN10933) that target non-overlapping epitopes in the SARS-CoV-2 peak protein.
In their work, the researchers evaluate the in vivo efficacy of this antibody cocktail both in
rhesus macaques like golden hamsters
In this sense, they manage to show that REGN-COV-2
can greatly reduce viral load
in the lower and upper respiratory tract and reduce virus-induced pathological sequelae when administered prophylactically or therapeutically.
And for this reason, they affirm that "our results provide evidence of the
therapeutic potential of this antibody cocktail
".
And, what is known about its effectiveness in people?
At this time, it is in the testing phase and
the fastest results would arrive in the month of December
.
"There is no certainty in terms of its efficacy," emphasizes the president of the SEFH.
But it is true that, as Sierra explains, "it is like dexamethasone, or you know that you have a patient with a moderate to severe infection, in which there is oxygen dependence, or if it cannot even be counterproductive."
This is
, its use in a covid without symptoms or without respiratory problems could even "produce an increase in mortality"
, emphasizes the president of the SEFH.
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