Lakeland resident Richard DeFreese has had asthma since childhood. Later in life, he also developed a chronic lung disease commonly known as COPD.
“I can’t run 30 feet. If I do, I’m bent over sucking in air,” says the 75-year-old retiree. “So that’s what it does, it just incapacitates your lungs.”
That’s why he worried so much about catching the coronavirus. But, despite taking advisable precautions, DeFreese and his wife contracted the virus earlier this month.
Given his medical conditions, DeFreese found himself in the hospital the same day he tested positive. But not for a stay. Rather, to receive an experimental treatment that has shown promise as a first line of defense to help prevent those with mild to moderate symptoms from developing more severe ones.
“It was so simple, it was unreal,” he says. “It was better than going to the dentist to get your teeth cleaned.”
Well, technically it’s not that simple, which is one reason word is still getting out about it. It’s a process that involves an hour-long infusion of what are called monoclonal antibodies. These lab creations work like the natural proteins the immune system uses to fend off infections.
“So these antibodies when they get into you, they go swimming around looking for this virus,” says Dr. Stephen Threlkeld with Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis. “It gives us a real head start at sticking to that virus, inactivating it, and then the immune system flushes it out.”
His facility was one of the first in the country to start offering monoclonal antibody infusions last November, after the FDA gave emergency-use authorization for the first of two drugs now available.
So far, the treatment has been underutilized nationwide, in part because hospitals are already short-staffed and stretched thin. But, federal, state and local health officials are still trying to get the word out about the unused surplus.
The treatment is free, but limited to people with the highest risk factors, like obesity, diabetes or those over age 65. Timing is essential—it’s ideally administered within days of the onset of symptoms and no more than 10 days after. The goal is to stay ahead of the infection and keep people out of the hospital.
“We got the challenge to make it happen, and we got very creative,” says Dr. Cassandra Howard with the Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare system.
They’ve set up a special monoclonal antibody infusion center in East Memphis, where they can treat 140 patients a week. They’re looking for more staff to scale up and encouraging the most vulnerable people to take quick action after a positive COVID-19 test.
"If you're deemed to be at high risk for disease progression to severe disease, hospitalizations and or death, we need to see you, and we need to offer you monoclonal [antibody treatment]," Dr. Howard says.
Dr. Threlkeld says early clinical data on the treatment is still incomplete, butencouraging enough to merit its use. He’s also been impressed by anecdotal outcomes. Of the 230 people tracked at Baptist who have received the treatment, eight later ended up hospitalized.
“If this thing can cut down hospitalizations by two-thirds or so, if the small number of patients looked at really translate into the larger population, that’s a big deal,” he says. “It’s a big deal in the highest risk population that we have.”
The ongoing challenge, he says, is making sure the right people know about it and have access to it.
Threlkeld says people can contact treatment centers directly or discuss the option with their physicians.
To find a list of facilities offering the infusions, visit: https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/health/documents/cedep/novel-coronavirus/Monoclonal_Antibody_Availability.pdf
