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- After testing positive for COVID-19, the president received an experimental antibody drug along with several other treatments.
- The president’s age, weight and gender place him in a
higher risk of severe illness due to COVID-19. - You are taking experimental treatments and a common steroid.
On Friday, the White House Announced that President Donald Trump received an experimental antibody treatment after he tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
The age, weight, and sex of the president place him in
He’s also been taking zinc, vitamin D, the acid reflux drug famotidine (Pepcid), melatonin, and aspirin daily, the White House reports.
On Sunday, Trump’s medical team reported that after two drops in the president’s oxygen saturation level, he began taking the steroid dexamethasone.
Here’s what we currently know about the treatments Trump is receiving for COVID-19.
The monoclonal antibody cocktail developed by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals is a combination of two antibodies that target the peak protein in SARS-CoV-2. The virus uses the spike protein to bind and infect cells.
Scientists have previously tested this drug in golden hamsters and rhesus macaque monkeys that were intentionally infected with SARS-CoV-2. Animals that received the drug had lower levels of the virus in the lower and upper respiratory tract, and fewer symptoms of the disease.
Regeneron is now testing the cocktail on non-hospitalized people who have tested positive for COVID-19 and are asymptomatic or have mild or moderate symptoms.
Clinical trials of the drug are ongoing, but the company released preliminary results last week.
These data show that the drug lowered viral load and shortened the duration of symptoms in people without detectable antibodies at the start of the study. The drug didn’t have much of an effect on people who already had antibodies to SARS-CoV-2.
The drug also worked better in people with a higher viral load. There is no information available on Trump’s viral load before he was administered this drug.
This antibody cocktail has not yet been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Trump’s doctor may have requested to prescribe the drug through the FDA’s “compassionate use” pathway for experimental treatments.
“In the president’s case, his medical staff would have carefully weighed the risks and benefits of a promising but early, unproven treatment,” said Dr. Teresa Murray Amato, president of emergency medicine at Long Island Jewish Forest Hills.
However, it is difficult to know if the drug will help the president because there is very little clinical trial data available.
Remdesivir is an antiviral drug developed by Gilead Sciences. It was previously tested as a treatment for hepatitis C and Ebola, but it did not work well for those diseases.
A clinical trial earlier this year showed the drug had a modest benefit for hospitalized patients with mild to moderate COVID-19.
“We have seen some positive studies with remdesivir, an antiviral drug that appears to decrease the replication of the virus, with few side effects,” Amato said.
As a result of this clinical trial, the FDA granted an emergency use authorization of the drug for patients with severe COVID-19. In August, the FDA
However, the true benefit of the drug for COVID-19 is uncertain.
While studies show that remdesivir can reduce the length of hospital stays by 4 days, it does not reduce the risk of dying from the coronavirus.
Dr. Mangala Narasimhan, Senior Vice President of Intensive Care Services at Northwell Health, said Trump’s administration of remdesivir is “on target” for what physicians would do for patients admitted to the hospital for COVID. -19. However, he adds that this assumes that he is like other hospitalized patients.
“It’s hard to know how sick he is,” he said. “We are not getting very good information.”
Dexamethasone is a common steroid that has been shown to be helpful in people with severe COVID-19. Due to side effects, this drug is not recommended for people in the early stages of the disease course.
The National Institutes of Health’s treatment guidelines for COVID-19 recommend that dexamethasone be used in patients who are on a ventilator or who are not ventilated but require supplemental oxygen.
“Dexamethasone can decrease the mortality of COVID-19 infected patients who are more severely ill,” Amato said. “It helps to moderate the immune response that leads to complications such as low oxygen levels (hypoxia), respiratory failure, kidney failure and other organ failure.”
However, NIH guidelines recommend not using this drug for people who are not receiving supplemental oxygen.
Trump’s doctor, Dr. Sean Conley said sunday that the president experienced two “transient” drops in his blood oxygen saturation level, one on Friday and one on Saturday.
Trump received supplemental oxygen on Friday for about an hour. Conley wasn’t sure if the president received supplemental oxygen on Saturday.
Conley added that as a result of Saturday’s crash, the president’s medical team decided to start him on the drug.
Dexamethasone can suppress the activity of the immune system, so it may be helpful for people with severe COVID-19, which can lead to an overreaction of the immune system.
However, giving the steroid too early can affect the immune system’s ability to fight the virus.
Dexamethasone can also cause other side effects such as nausea, vomiting, trouble sleeping, and severe mood swings.
The NIH guidelines are supported by a clinical trial conducted earlier this year by researchers at the University of Oxford, which showed that this drug benefited only patients sick enough to require supplemental oxygen.
“In that study, for patients who were not in [supplemental] oxygen, there was actually harm to those patients, ”Narasimhan said. “So it’s a bit unusual [that Trump would receive dexamethasone] if what they tell us about their oxygen level is true. “
“Due to the fact that they gave him dexamethasone, there appears to be a level of disease that we are not getting information about,” he added.
Vitamin D and zinc are being investigated as possible treatments for COVID-19. Both nutrients are necessary for the proper function of the immune system, but their benefit for COVID-19 is unknown.
“Some doctors in the country believe that a cocktail of zinc, vitamin D and steroids is very beneficial in reducing the inflammatory response in COVID-19,” Narasimhan said. “But there is no good, solid scientific data, in terms of papers, to prove that.”
Recent one
Additionally, a study in Spain found that COVID-19 patients with low blood zinc levels had a higher risk of dying from the disease.
These are all observational studies, so they don’t show a cause and effect relationship between nutrients and the virus, or the severity of COVID-19. However, randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of both nutrients are underway.
Famotidine, a heartburn remedy sold under the name Pepcid, has been suggested as a treatment for COVID-19. However, there is little data to support this.
Earlier this year, an inpatient clinical trial in New York found that the drug could have some benefit for COVID-19 patients.
However, the institute that started that trial issued a statement last week saying the drug’s efficacy for COVID-19 is uncertain, Science reports.
Melatonin to aid sleep is also in the early stages of COVID-19 clinical trials, with no results to support its use in people with COVID-19.
Other research has shown that the compound has anti-inflammatory and immune-enhancing effects in other diseases.
In animal models, it can reduce cytokines, inflammatory molecules that can contribute to the severity of COVID-19.
Trump has been taking a low daily dose of aspirin since at least 2018 to prevent cardiovascular disease, Vox reports.
Serious heart conditions
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