Read also: Sotrovimab - how the UAE’s new drug to treat Covid-19 works
Doctors in the UAE have already started to administer a new antiviral medicine designed to treat Covid-19 patients.
High-risk patients with mild to moderate symptoms will be given sotrovimab, Dr Omar Najim, executive office director at Abu Dhabi’s Department of Health, said in a radio interview on Sunday.
The UAE is the first country to receive the revolutionary medication, which received FDA approval from the US only three weeks ago.
When used early on, it has been shown to prevent death in 85 per cent of cases.
Dr Najim was interviewed on Dubai Eye radio's Business Breakfast programme.
Q. How did we manage to get sotrovimab so quickly, within three weeks of it being approved?
The relationship on the agreement on getting this medication didn’t start three weeks ago. The conversation started almost two months ago.
We have a specialised team within Abu Dhabi Department of Health that scours the world for any new medications and research that potentially could be promising, including antivirals, including vaccines, including even new ways of managing the pandemic.
The team has identified the clinical research, and GlaxoSmithKline engaged with us very early on, and we expressed a firm interest in getting the medications once they got approved.
So once they got approval, we already had the wheels going, so to speak. We had already identified what the process was going to be.
So once the FDA approved it, we collaborated with the Ministry of Health and Prevention, on getting it approved and reviewing the scientific evidence, and that’s how we got it within three weeks.”
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Abu Dhabi’s vaccine and testing drive - in pictures
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Abu Dhabi residents are inoculated at the screening and vaccine centre on the Corniche. A nationwide testing and inoculation campaign is credited with driving down cases. All photos: Victor Besa / The National -
Staff and nurses from the Abu Dhabi public hospital group Seha urged the public to protect themselves from Covid-19 by signing up to be vaccinated. -
Motorists queue for PCR tests at Seha's testing and vaccination centre on Abu Dhabi's Corniche. -
Mass testing and a successful vaccination campaign has helped the UAE to tackle the pandemic. -
Drivers wait at a centre that provides both PCR nasal swab tests and coronavirus vaccine doses. -
Shenaz Abdul Salam, 13, gives a thumbs up as he waits to receive his first vaccine dose. -
A staff nurse fills in a vaccination form for a driver at the Corniche centre. -
Mariam Al Badi, an Emirati nurse working at Seha's drive-through vaccine centre, has urged everyone to get inoculated against Covid-19. -
Ms Al Badi goes through the vaccination process with a driver. -
Cars queue at the drive-through testing and vaccination centre on Abu Dhabi's Corniche. -
More than 80 per cent of the UAE population has been vaccinated and the government is urging those who have not to sign up. -
An Abu Dhabi resident gives the thumbs up after signing up for vaccination. -
Authorities have made the vaccines free for everyone. -
A medical worker checks papers as Abu Dhabi residents sign up for the Covid-19 vaccine. -
The drive-through Covid-19 testing and inoculation centre has proved popular with Abu Dhabi residents.
Q. Is there much competition for drugs like this? Are there others in the queue?
I wouldn’t call it competition. Every country has its own assessment of what it needs, and how urgently it needs a medication to serve the population. So each country has its own processes.
The competition is more about developing the new medications, or developing the new vaccines, or developing the new drugs, and it is a competition that is leading more to collaboration, rather than saying I want to get it before anybody else.
I wouldn’t call it competition but rather proactive approach to getting these medications, or these treatments.”
Q. Who will be given sotrovimab? At what stage does a Covid-19 patient become eligible for it?
It is applicable to a specific group of patients. It’s going to be given to mild and moderate patients.
When somebody gets identified as positive and they have symptoms and their condition is mild to moderate, then this will be offered to them.
However, it is going to be offered to patients with high risk – the ones with associated diseases so high blood pressure, diabetes, immune deficiency diseases and the likes.
They will be offered these medications because it’s proven to be most effective in these patients, and the elderly as well, in preventing the deaths and admission to hospital.
Q. Does it work on all strains of the virus?
So far, it does. According to the latest scientific data that’s been published, it works in varying degrees, on most of the ones that are known to date.
So it does work on the Delta, and it does work on the Alpha and Beta variants. Of course it’s not 100 per cent effective, it’s 85 per cent effective.
It’s another tool in the in the toolbox that we currently have, and it’s important to have it.
You get to assess medications by the value they bring, and this medication – which we started rolling out on Thursday, and many patients have started receiving it – promises to reduce deaths. Even one case of prevented severe infection or death is worthwhile.
