Antibody-based drugs that bind to the coronavirus to prevent it from invading cells can help patients with mild to moderate COVID-19. But the medicines can be tough to find in time.
In a clinical trial of about 800 people, the cocktail was shown to significantly reduce virus levels within days of treatment.
The federal government plans to distribute monoclonal antibodies for the coronavirus to healthcare systems throughout Pennsylvania, state Secretary of Health Rachel Levine said Friday.
The county never informed people who may have received false alarms, nor did it disclose the questionable test results — about 6,100 of the 19,425 tests it conducted — on its website.
The researchers stressed that the Ab8 antibody component is not an alternative to a vaccine, but rather might become one of the tools that will lead to the end of the pandemic.
It’s still unclear whether plasma treatments are effective for people with COVID-19.
Scientists at Johns Hopkins are studying whether purified blood serum from people who have recovered from COVID-19 could prevent the disease in someone else.
The current crop of coronavirus antibody tests have not been thoroughly vetted by any regulatory agency.