A LOCAL pensioner has become the first patient in Cheshire and Merseyside to receive a new Covid drug treatment which is being rolled-out nationally.
Phil McConnell, aged 73, received the drug, Sotrovimab, at Newon Community Hospital.
Sotrovimab is a monoclonal antibody given as a transfusion to transplant recipients, cancer patients and other high-risk groups.
If given quickly after Covid symptoms develop it should help prevent people from falling seriously ill with the disease. Initial tests suggest it should still work against the Omicron variant.
Phil, from Haydock, said: “Because of cancer my immune system isn’t what it should be, so I am very pleased to be getting this treatment which will reduce my risk of needing to go to hospital and stop me worrying so much.”
Dr Ted Adams, the programme’s clinical lead for Cheshire and Mersey, is medical director at Warrington-based Bridgewater Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust.
He said: “This treatment is our latest important weapon in the battle against the virus.
“If you test positive, have symptoms and are at high risk then the NHS will contact you, and, if eligible, you will be able to get access to this new treatment.”
To date, most Covid treatments have focused on patients already in hospital with the disease – such as the steroid dexamethasone and the arthritis drug Tocilizumab.
Now a second generation of Covid drugs like Sotrovimab are starting to come on stream – aimed at vulnerable patients at an earlier stage of infection.
Initial clinical trials suggest Sotrovimab, developed by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Vir Biotechnology, is thought to reduce the risk of hospitalisation in high risk patients by 79 per cent.
The drug works by binding to the spike protein on the outside of the virus, preventing it from entering human cells, so that it cannot replicate in the body
GSK has said early laboratory tests suggest it should still work against the Omicron variant. More checks are still needed, but researchers say the drug targets a part of the spike protein of the virus that has not undergone major changes or
Around 1.3 million of the highest risk NHS patients are eligible to receive Sotrovimab, along with other new Covid treatments as they become available.
The drug is most effective if taken in the first five days after infection and will be given in clinics or to outpatients in hospital.
Since receiving the treatment, Mr McConnell is said to be “doing well.”
