Antibodies against Covid-19: Donald Trump's treatment works well in animals
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Still in an experimental stage, the therapeutic approach against Covid-19 consisting of injecting antibodies to fight the virus has just given good results in tests on laboratory animals. This is the kind of treatment President Trump received exceptionally.
Until then, only the press releases published by the pharmaceutical company Regeneron praised the merits and good results of the use of monoclonal antibodies to fight Covid-19, an infection by the Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus.
In fact, if the president of the United States, Donald Trump, who has received this treatment in an exceptional way, is fundamentally convinced of its efficacy and safety, the scientific and medical community remains more reserved.
But this should be a game changer: In a new study, published Oct. 9 in the journal Science, a team from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals and the Texas Institute for Biomedical Research has revealed promising experimental results in animal trials.
Here, the team administered their cocktail of antibodies against rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) and golden hamsters (Mesocricetus auratus), which were divided into two groups. Some animals were injected with antibodies before becoming infected with the coronavirus, while others were only given a placebo.
The researchers then found that the macaques that received the treatment before infection had significantly fewer symptoms than those that received a placebo and had a much lower viral load. Injecting the antibody cocktail after infection was also found to be beneficial, again reducing symptoms and speeding up virus clearance (in jargon, this is called viral clearance).
Bred in golden hamsters, in which infection with Sars-CoV-2 induces more severe symptoms, including severe weight loss, the experiment yielded very similar results. The antibody cocktail reduced symptoms, either injected before or after infection. Hamsters treated in this way did not experience weight loss, unlike those treated with placebo.
For the team, there is no doubt that this cocktail of antibodies can offer important therapeutic benefits, either prescribed as a treatment or as a preventive measure against Covid-19.
In a video recently posted to his Twitter account, Donald Trump announced that these antibodies and other similar treatments that are currently being validated will soon be available for free to Americans, through an emergency use authorization granted by the FDA. the United States Drug Agency.
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