Covid-19: No antibody cocktail in revised treatment protocol in Bengal

KOLKATA: The health department on Tuesday scrapped monoclonal antibody cocktail and antiviral molnupiravir in its revised Covid treatment protocol. The antibody cocktail therapy and the antiviral had found place in treatment guideline which was issued on Saturday. Sources in the health department said scrapping these two drugs/therapy will prevent the misuse.
TOI had reported on Sunday how these two drugs are the new entry to the Covid-treatment protocol in Bengal.The protocol had recommended monoclonal antibody cocktail and Molnupiravir for the asymptomatic but high-risk patients and symptomatic patients with certain co-morbidities to prevent the disease progressing towards severe infection.
"The Government of India is yet to give a guideline regarding these new drugs. So we will withhold these drugs till the national guidelines give a clear direction," said director health services Ajay Chakraborty.
While Molnupiravir has been only recently approved, many hospitals across the city have been using the cocktail therapy on patients for about seven months. Apart from hospitals like Medica and CMRI that had used the therapy on a number of patients (ranging between 70 and 150) even state-run Infectious Diseases & Beliaghata General Hospital (ID&BG) had used it on 40-odd patients to assess its efficacy. And doctors had assessed a fair efficacy in preventing a patient from getting severe disease.
Cost of a multipack dose of this cocktail, mix of two drugs - Casirimivab and imdevimab - costs Rs 1.2 lakh.
Health officials at Swasthya Bhawan said they started getting calls from district health officials requisitioning for the vials of the antibody cocktail and the antiviral medicines after Saturday's protocol was published.
"We do not want any rampant use and misuse of this expensive medicine and waste of public resources. But we will from time to time re-evaluate and review this treatment protocol as and when the need for changes is required as the virus itself is evolving," said gastroenterologist GK Dhali, officer on special duty for Covid-19 in Bengal.
Sources in the health department said some private hospitals and pharmaceuticals companies also might take advantage of it from patients, who do not even need these medications, citing the health department's protocol.
The new expert committee headed by Dhali for overseeing the Covid treatment protocol have doctors Yogiraj Ray (infectious diseases), Saurav Majhi (pulmonologist), Sanjay Chatterjee (medicine) and Ashim Kundu (critical care).
The flip-flop, however, has caused confusion among medics.
"Something explanatory to qualify the withdrawal of the drugs from the protocol could have caused less confusion," said cardiac surgeon Kunal Sarkar during a briefing at IPGMER.