UPMC health leaders announced how limited doses of Astra Zeneca’s Monoclonal antibody cocktail will be distributed throughout its system.
It’s designed to prevent COVID-19 infection in people who are vulnerable and immunocompromised such as transplant and cancer patients.
Officials say they will administer it to eligible patients as quickly as possible.
Qualifying patients will be contacted and scheduled by UPMC and there is no call in line at this time.
“I’ll tack on, we do get the question now that this awesome drug exists, can I just use this drug and not get vaccinated? The answer is no. For two reasons, first and foremost vaccination like we mentioned cascades your immune system in what we call a Polyclonal or many copies fashion and, so the monoclonal antibodies we give our one copy, of one specific antibody.”
“They’re helpful but it is no replacement for our natural immune system. So, vaccination is crucial. The other is that we don’t have enough drug, as we talked about.”
