Another life-saving Covid treatment discovered

It's been a year since it was revealed that a cheap steroid was capable of preventing Covid Deaths. However, recently, researchers have discovered another life-saving therapy. 

Results have shown that a potent intravenous infusion of antibodies to neutralise the virus can cure one of every three patients battling Covid-19 in the hospitals, reports BBC. 

Experts claim that for every 100 patients treated, it is expected to at least save six lives. 

However, it is to be noted that those who have already been given and are producing antibodies of their own to fight the virus are not eligible for the treatment which can cost anywhere from £1,000 to £2,000.

Kimberley Featherstone, 37, who received the treatment during the trial, said: "I feel very lucky that the trial was up and running by the time I was taken to hospital with Covid-19 and I was able to receive this ground-breaking treatment.

 "I'm happy that by participating I played a part in finding out this treatment is successful."

 This monoclonal antibody treatment is said to bind itself to the virus and prevent it from infecting cells and replicating.

 In the trial, which included nearly 1,000 UK hospital patients, it significantly reduced the:

risk of death

length of hospital stay, by four days on average

likelihood of needing a ventilator to breathe

 Joint chief investigator Sir Martin Landray said: "Giving them this combination of two antibodies by an intravenous infusion then actually reduces their chances of dying by a fifth.

"What we found is nowhere we can use an antiviral treatment, in this case, these antibodies, in patients who have got a one in three chance of dying untreated and we can reduce that risk for them."

 The treatment was given in addition to the anti-inflammatory steroid drug dexamethasone, which itself cuts death risk by up to a third for the sickest Covid patients.

Sir Peter Horby, the other chief investigator, said there had been great uncertainty about whether antibody therapies were the right approach when some other studies had found no benefit.

 Using blood plasma from recovered patients - which contains antibodies that should recognise and fight the virus - has not proved effective as a Covid therapy, for example.

But the antibody treatment used in the Recovery trial contains large doses of two specific antibodies, made in the lab, that are good at latching on to the pandemic virus.

Sir Peter said: "It is wonderful to learn that even in advanced Covid-19 disease, targeting the virus can reduce mortality in patients who have failed to mount an antibody response of their own."