Hamilton monoclonal antibody clinic sees 'incredible results' for high-risk COVID patients

A Hamilton-based clinic that provides a new therapy aimed at keeping high-risk COVID-19 patients out of hospital is seeing "incredible results," according to the doctor leading it.

St. Joseph's hospital launched Ontario's first COVID-19 monoclonal antibody therapy clinic for outpatients in October.

It's a treatment that early studies have shown reduced the risk of hospitalization and deaths by about 70 per cent, and Dr. Zain Chagla said patients with the virus report feeling better within a couple of days of receiving it.

"The whole point here is to reduce people ending up in hospital," said the doctor who is heading up the pilot program.

Despite the risk facing the patients they're working with, fewer than five people who have received the therapy have ended up in a hospital bed, he said.

"None of those people needed to be in the ICU on a ventilator. None of those people died and we've had a number of incredibly high-risk patients who have had very benign outcomes of their COVID-19."

Chagla celebrated the 99th dose doled out through the Hamilton program in a Dec. 27 post on Twitter.

"A huge thanks to the incredible nursing team, pharmacy team, clerical, informatics, and everyone else that made this a success," he wrote. "The vast majority of patients who were high risk made a full recovery."

The Hamilton clinic was the first of its kind in Ontario, though it has been used in other countries including the U.S., U.K. and Australia.

The treatment helps the immune system begin to fight back against COVID-19 sooner than it would on its own by providing antibodies to attack the virus, rather than waiting for the body to build them, Dr. Kashif Pirzada, an emergency physician at Toronto's Humber River Hospital, previously said to the CBC.

"These treatments give you those antibodies up front … COVID kills you by evading your immune system and making your system overreact. If it gets to the overreaction, it's already too late," he said at the time.

Ontario's Ministry of Health (UHN), said Toronto's University Health Network is managing the supply and distribution of casirivimab/imdevimab, and sotrovimab, the monoclonal antibody treatments currently approved in the province.

A spokesperson for UHN said there are currently six "depots" for casirivimab/imdevimab and eight for sotrovima.

The province and hospitals have also worked out criteria for who can receive the therapy, including that patients must have tested positive for COVID-19 and have had symptoms in the past seven days.