The use of these drugs is advised only for certain patients.
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The World Health Organization (WHO) recommended, Friday, January 14, two new treatments against Covid-19, for a total now increased to five. In an opinion published in the medical journal The BMJ, experts from the UN agency recommend treatment with synthetic antibodies, sotrovimab, and a drug usually used against rheumatoid arthritis, baricitinib.
They are aimed specifically at certain patients. Sotrovimab is recommended for those who have contracted mild Covid but are at high risk of hospitalization. Its benefit for patients who are not at risk is considered too low. Baricitinib is recommended for “patients with severe or critical Covid”, to which it should be administered “in combination with corticosteroids”. In these patients, treatment “improves survival rates and reduces the need for mechanical ventilation”.
Until then, the WHO recommended three treatments: synthetic antibodies sold under the name Ronapreve, since September 2021, a class of drugs called “interleukin 6 antagonists” (tocilizumab and sarilumab), since July 2021, and systematic corticosteroids for severely affected patients, since September 2020. WHO anti-Covid treatment recommendations are regularly updated, based on clinical trials conducted on different types of patients.