After the approval of two different vaccines against the Sars-Cov-2 (COVID-19), the US under the Biden administration is racing to get vaccines in peoples’ arms as more contagious strains of the virus emerge.
The vaccines appear to be highly efficacious in clinical trials in preventing the infection. However, both vaccines currently available, and some others in the pipeline, require two doses separated by several weeks to achieve maximal effectiveness.
Another approach that is being studied for the treatment of active COVID-19 cases seems to be also effective in preventing infections, just like a vaccine would do. Bamlanivimab is a monoclonal antibody developed by Eli Lilly Company that has shown some benefit in treating people infected with mild disease (see my article posted on September 29, 2020, “Hope Against the Virus: Ly-Cov555 may boost Immunity!” under the COVID-19 section).
As a brief refresher, these monoclonal antibodies come from actual patients infected with the coronavirus. They are produced by a unique lineage of the B- lymphocytes, the specialized cells of the immune system that make antibodies.
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The antibodies bind and remove viruses from circulation and can destroy cells already infected by the virus to prevent them from spreading the infection.
Monoclonal antibodies are selected because they are very potent at clearing the virus. What’s really cool is that they can be given to treat COVID-19, but because they circulate in the blood for a long time (weeks), they could also prevent a person from getting infected if there is enough in the blood.
This particular study focused on both workers and residents in nursing homes. This is really important because nursing home residents are elderly and many have underlying medical conditions.
They are also living in a group setting. Early in the pandemic, as many as one-third of all COVID-19 cases originated in nursing homes. The mortality rate was very high. In this study, receiving Bamlanivimab reduced the chances of getting infected with coronavirus by 57% overall.
