A new COVID treatment has showed early signs of success in the ACT, preventing serious illness in most patients it's been administered to.
The drug, Sotrovimab, has been administered to 90 COVID-positive patients in the territory and only two have gone on to develop a respiratory problem, Canberra Health Services infectious diseases physician Nick Coatsworth has revealed.
Dr Coatsworth told an estimates hearing on Thursday the drug could be important in treating unvaccinated patients.
"We will continue to monitor the effectiveness of that program to identify patients who are eligible because that really is important for those who are unvaccinated in the evolution of treatment in hospital," he said.
The ACT was one of the first Australian jurisdictions to use the treatment after the drug was granted provisional approval by the Therapeutic Goods Administration in August.
Sotrovimab is administered to patients in a single dose via an intravenous infusion.
But only a small number of patients are eligible. Only people over 55 can access the drug who are not fully vaccinated, have a mild illness and have certain comorbidities. It also needs to be given within five days of symptom onset.
Last month, Dr Coatsworth warned the treatment was no substitute for the vaccination.
"You've got to carefully select the patient who gets it. It's not for everybody and it's definitely not a substitute for the vaccine," he said.
Dr Coatsworth said COVID patients were doing better as immunity grew and the fatality rate had decreased but he warned the unvaccinated could still burden the system.
"Certainly the case fatality rate now is coming down to approach what influenza would be, so it is coming down now with treatment," he said.
"But you've got to remember if you spread that across an entire unvaccinated population you can still potentially have a significant burden on the healthcare system.
"We're incredibly well placed in the ACT because of our vaccination rates."
