To treat an already declared Covid, none of the three treatments available until now is effective if the infection is due to this new variant, according to the drug agency.
Article written by
Posted
Update
Reading time : 1 min.
Omicron reshuffles the cards. The French health authorities clearly restricted, on Wednesday January 5, the range of anti-Covid treatments by synthetic antibodies, noting that some were not shown to be effective enough against this new variant.
To treat an already declared Covid, none of the three treatments available so far is effective if the infection is due to the Omicron variant, the Medicines Agency (ANSM) said in a press release. Only one, AstraZeneca Evusheld, can be used to prevent infection with this variant.
Until recently, three antibody treatments were authorized in France against Covid: Ronapreve by Roche, the bamlanivimab-etesivimab combination by Eli Lilly and, more recently, Evusheld.
These treatments are rarely administered because they are heavy, since they require an intravenous or intramuscular injection for Evusheld. They are aimed at specific categories of patients. On the one hand, these are people who are already suffering from severe forms, to prevent them from degenerating. On the other hand, these are people in whom the vaccination works poorly because their immune system is weakened: transplant recipients, dialysis patients, transplant recipients, suffering from certain cancers or taking certain treatments. The aim is to offer these so-called “immunocompromised” people another form of prevention than the vaccine.
But the Omicron variant, which has been rapidly expanding since the end of 2021, is resistant to several of these treatments. This is particularly the case with Ronapreve. This one “must not be used” in the presence of Omicron, whether for prevention or to treat a Covid already installed, warned the ANSM. However, it continues to authorize it against severe forms linked to the Delta variant, Omicron’s predecessor.