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WASHINGTON (AFP, BLOOMBERG) – US President Donald Trump is receiving an experimental synthetic antibody treatment for Covid-19, his doctor said on Friday (October 2), and is “fatigued but in a good mood.”
Trump received a single dose of Regeneron’s antibody cocktail, according to a letter issued by White House physician Sean Conley.
The treatment is in clinical trials, but has not received any form of regulatory approval.
“It is being evaluated by a team of experts, and together we will make recommendations to the president and the first lady regarding the next best steps,” Conley said.
He said that first lady Melania Trump, who is also infected, “is doing well with just a mild cough and headache.”
Trump, who has repeatedly questioned the severity of the pandemic, first announced in an overnight tweet that he and first lady Melania Trump, 50, had tested positive and were in quarantine.
Earlier this week, Regeneron announced the results of one of its early-stage trials showing that its drug, which is infused intravenously, reduces viral load and recovery time in outpatient Covid-19 patients.
“We have begun discussing our findings with regulatory authorities as we continue our ongoing trial,” George Yancopoulos, the company’s president and chief scientific officer, said Tuesday.
The U.S. biotech company is simultaneously conducting advanced-stage trials for hospitalized patients with Covid-19 and for the drug’s potential use as prophylaxis.
Antibodies are infection-fighting proteins produced by the immune system that can bind to particular structures on the surface of pathogens and prevent them from invading cells.
Vaccines work by teaching the body to make its own antibodies, while scientists are also testing antibodies made from the blood of recovered patients, called convalescent plasma.
But it is not possible to make a mass treatment of convalescent plasma.
Researchers can also examine the antibodies produced by recovered patients and select the most effective among thousands, and then manufacture it at scale.
Regeneron’s experimental drug Covid-19, called REGN-COV2, is a combination of two antibodies, called a “cocktail.”
The idea is that it will have a better chance of working if the virus mutates to evade the blocking action of a single antibody.
Last year, a triple antibody cocktail developed by Regeneron was shown to be effective against the Ebola virus.
Trump and his wife have been in isolation in the White House since their diagnosis, which they announced after Bloomberg News reported that one of their closest aides, Hope Hicks, had tested positive for coronavirus infection.
Conley’s statement was the first update from Trump’s doctor since early Friday morning.
The president has not tweeted or made any public statements since announcing his infection at 12:54 a.m. in Washington.
Trump learned of Hicks’s positive test Thursday morning, but continued with his planned schedule for the day, including a fundraiser at his Bedminster, NJ, golf resort that raised $ 5 million for his campaign. , according to people familiar with the matter.
Trump and Hicks had been in close contact in the days leading up to his diagnosis. She traveled with him to the presidential debate in Cleveland on Tuesday and to campaign events in Minnesota on Wednesday.
Hicks tested negative for infection Wednesday morning, then fell ill in Minnesota and was isolated on the flight back to Washington aboard Air Force One, according to people familiar with the matter.
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