Doctors treat Trump with antibody cocktail
Doctors say U.S. President Donald Trump was treated with a single dose of Regeneron's experimental antibody cocktail. Regeneron's cocktail therapy is a mix of two highly potent antibodies against the coronavirus spike protein. It is currently being tested in clinical trials. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious-disease official, has referred to the medicines as a bridge to a vaccine for COVID-19.
Trump may be an ideal person to benefit from the experimental therapy, which is an artificial version of the antibodies the immune system naturally makes to fight off infection. Since Trump was diagnosed so quickly, the treatment could help jump-start his fight against the pathogen.
Trump said early Friday morning that he and wife Melania have tested positive for COVID-19. “We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately,” Trump said in a late night tweet. “We will get through this TOGETHER!”
Although he reportedly had mild symptoms earlier on Friday, doctors said he developed a fever and would be transferred to hospital.
Trump is in a high-risk group by virtue of his age — 74 — and the fact he has an elevated body mass index. However, he's also reported to be in “excellent” health.
The older the person, the more likely he or she is to have a severe course of disease, said Dr. Christopher Labos, a Montreal cardiologist and epidemiologist. For people aged 70 to 79, the infection fatality rate — meaning an infected person's risk of dying — is 5.1 per cent, according to Public Health Ontario.
“For the vast majority of people who have no symptoms, or very mild symptoms, you wouldn't give them any treatment, just supportive care — drink plenty of fluids, ride the infection out at home,” Labos said Friday.
Aside from Gilead's remdesivir, the only other approved treatment for COVID-19 is the steroid dexamethasone. Both drugs were mainly studied in people at the severe end of the spectrum — people with moderate or severe disease, often in people that were hospitalized and on oxygen. “Most of the benefit was derived in the people who were the most sick,” Labos said.
“There is a bit of a threshold before you want to give remdesivir (administered intravenously) to somebody — they really have to be sick enough to justify,” Labos said. However, that threshold might be different for the president of the United States.
While COVID- 19 can be serious, the majority of people have a relatively mild viral illness. While older people are at higher risk of complications that might require admission to hospital or intensive care, “the majority of people who get COVID-19 in their 70s still do recover,” Labos said.
“We shouldn' t underappreciate the severity of the virus, but we shouldn't overstate the case, either.”
Trump has a reported BMI of over 30, putting him in the official category of obesity, and COVID-19 is more deadly in people with obesity. Like high blood pressure or diabetes, excess weight increases the probability of serious complications.
So does being male. However, Reuters reports that a July paper by the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research put an otherwise healthy 70- to 79-year-old's risk of dying from the pandemic virus at 4.6 per cent, regardless of gender.