Doctors at the Timisoara-based Victor Babes Infectious Diseases and Pneumophthisiology Hospital have included in the list of COVID-19 treatment schemes a drug used so far to treat general chronic inflammation, especially arthritis.
Coordinator of the Infectious Diseases Intensive Care Unit of the Victor Babes Hospital Voichita Lazureanu said on Friday that it is anti-interleukin-6 receptor monoclonal antibody treatment, and studies so far show that this treatment would reduce the need for mechanical ventilation in patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 diagnosed with pneumonia.
According to Lazureanu, monoclonal antibodies mimic those generated by the human body to fight infections, and Interleukin 6 is a protein produced by the body's immune cells. After such treatment, it was found that there was health improvement in patients with moderate and severe forms of the disease.
"The advantage is that it can be administered per ward and there is no need for the patient to be transferred to intensive care, as is the case with plasma or Remdesivir, and then the intensive care unit is spared these cases," according to Lazureanu.
The treatment is administered intravenously in four doses every eight hours in a diluted saline solution.
However, the hospital's specialists warn that there is a quite short time window for the administration of this medicine if it is to be effective.
"The faster the treatment was administered in the course of the disease, the greater its efficacy. In terminally ill patients, there is very little medication and only with plasma, Remdesivir, haemofiltration or mechanical ventilation, even with the installation of an artificial lung, it can still work," said Lazureanu.
So far, almost one hundred patients infected with the novel coronavirus hospitalised at the Victor Babes Hospital in Timisoara have been administered the anti-interleukin-6 receptor monoclonal antibody treatment.
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