In the context of a global surge in Covid-19 cases, mainly caused by the highly spread Omicron variant, research has shown that antibody treatments that are effective against previous strains of coronavirus may not be effective against new variants.

According to a report in the journal Nature, some preprint publications indicate that Omicron is “fully or partially resistant to all currently available treatments based on these monoclonal antibodies.” Therefore, compared with other variants, many antibody therapy manufacturers have admitted that their products are much less effective on Omicron.

According to the report, the only two antibodies with strong evidence are sotrovimab developed by Vir Biotechnology in San Francisco, California, and GSK, headquartered in London. And DXP-604. US health officials said they will allocate sotrovimab to states based on the severity of Covid-19 and the number of infections and hospitalizations. However, many countries cannot obtain sotrovimab at all. Generally speaking, monoclonal antibody therapy for Covid-19, whether from a single antibody or a mixture of multiple antibodies, can prevent the virus from infecting human cells, thereby reducing the risk of viral infection by up to 85% through the following methods. In the case of Omicron, the researchers quoted in the report that even if the concentration is increased, the therapeutic concentration that should reduce virus replication by half cannot even reach the threshold.

Olivier Schwartz, a virologist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris and co-author of one of the preprints, said: “We did not expect this change in the effectiveness of antibodies.”

Sotrovimab is the best antibody therapy available. However, the study found that the only two antibody therapies that maintain a certain degree of neutralization against Omicron are the therapies developed by AstraZeneca in Cambridge, England.

So far, compared to the highly infectious Delta strain, Omicron has been shown to be more infectious but less severe. Stuart Turville, a virologist at the Kirby Institute in Sydney, Australia, said that although the number of hospitalizations for the new variant has decreased so far, “if Omicron bites hard, it will be a disaster.” He is a co-author of the study. one. Preprint.

Omicron is the main variant of the United States. In the past two weeks, the number of new Covid-19 cases per day has more than tripled, reaching a record average of 480,000 cases. With dozens of infected workers being quarantined, American schools, hospitals and airlines are struggling.

Complete News Source : Hindustan Times