More COVID Treatments Promised By White House

The Coronavirus, which was first reported in China in 2019, turned out to be a pandemic spreading out in different countries, affecting a lot of people.

More COVID Treatments Promised By White House

Who knew that the Coronavirus would be causing so much havoc in people’s lives that it has been affecting people right from 2019 to the present day. Day after day, we pray that this would be put to an end, but each time Corona has been coming with the more lethal variant that has taken a number of lives.

Now, much in the news that most people would have heard of is the Omicron virus which is a variant of the SARS-Cov-2 virus of 2019 and is much more lethal than any of its predecessors.

This virus has spread out in the world at a rapid pace and was first reported in South Africa. It is said to be more lethal compared to the Alpha and Beta virus and is much more transmissible. It has been reported in a number of countries with many countries imposing strict lockdown to curb its spread.

This virus is said to be incubating much faster, taking around three to five days. It has also been said that the people affected are showing symptoms much faster as compared to any previous variants. The reason that it is much more severe is that there has been a transformation in spoke protein and making it much deadlier.

The symptoms that could be noticed are scratch throat, runny nose, fatigue, headache, night sweats. Though in many countries people have been vaccinated, that has been a relief, still, the job is not done as there are many left to be vaccinated, including people of all ages and people, can’t be complacent as this is deadly.

Even the WHO has designated this variant as a Variant of Concern and has asked the countries to include surveillance, research on it, performing field investigations, reporting the findings to the WHO.

America has been fighting the increase of Omicron cases, and so as to tackle it the White House has been ramping up the treatments.

One of the treatments that the White House has been looking forward to is the Sotrovimab which is a monoclonal antibody treatment manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline and Vir Biotechnology.

Preclinical data has been generated through pseudovirus testing. George Scangos, CEO, Vir, Sotrovimab, said that it was the first monoclonal antibody that reported preclinical data that showed activity against all tested SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern.

There has been a lot of research done on this vaccine and the outcomes also have been positive, like reduction in hospitalization, decrease in emergency room visits, reduction in respiratory complications, decrease in oxygen requirement.

The only treatment at present that has been advised in America is the use of Sotrovimab.

As the number of cases has been increasing in America, the Government has ordered more courses of GlaxoSmithKline treatment. Of these, about 300,000 are expected to be delivered in January.

The other two treatments that were also being used were the monoclonal antibodies made by Eli Lilly and Regeneron. These treatments have not been that much effective and hence these treatments have been discontinued and the Government has followed with Sotrovimab.

As per Dr. Shireesha Dhanireddy, the course of Sotrovimab has been in short supply and the allocation shipping for the entire state has been about half the usual size.

There have been concerns regarding who would be getting the courses first and the people from the low-income group may not be getting the course of Sotrovimab on time. In the end, it would be best that everybody takes precautions like wearing the mask, taking the Covid-19 test before going to social events or meeting someone, following the guidelines that the respective authorities have put forward as this is only the first line of defense