KOLKATA: Doctors at Infectious Diseases and Beliaghata General Hospital (IDBG) administered a monoclonal antibody cocktail — a new and expensive therapy to counter the virus by protecting the patient from severe infection and hospitalization — to two mildly Covid-infected senior citizens on Thursday .
While at least two private hospitals have offered the therapy to a few patients, this is for the first time that the cocktail therapy is being given to the Covid-19 patients in a government health set-up in Bengal.
On July 1, TOI had reported the state government’s plan to study the effectiveness of the therapy on the high-risk category of Covid-19 patients.
On Thursday, it was given to an elderly couple aged 79 and 69 years from North 24 Parganas. Both of them have been mildly infected but have co-morbidities. “The two patients have co-morbidities including ischemic heart ailment and hypertension with mild infection, which are ideal conditions for administering this therapeutic drug. It is to be given on a day care basis. But since the patients arrived in the hospital late in the evening, and they are not from the city, we have decided to keep them in the hospital overnight,” said infectious diseases specialist Sayantan Banerjee.
The health department has got 300 vials of the drug from the Union health ministry. The cost of a multi dose pack that can treat two patients is Rs 1.2 lakh. Three other government-run hospitals would also be assessing the effectiveness of the drug. “This drug is expected to prevent hospitalisation or the need of intensive care,” said senior clinical trial specialist Santanu Tripathi, one of the team to guide and coordinate with the four hospitals.
