Federal officials are making another push to improve access to monoclonal antibody treatments. If successful, the drive could enable more staff and equipment to get the widely heralded COVID-19 treatment to sick patients in non-hospital settings.

The Department of Health and Human Services last week said it was committing an additional $150 million toward the infusions, which have been proven highly successful in keeping mild to moderate COVID-19 cases from progressing.

Earlier in March, HHS made available members of its civilian Medical Reserve Corps to help build infusion programs or administer the drugs in 800 communities across the country. The access comes through a new initiative of the Long-Term Care Infusion Support Activity, or LISA, coalition.

Capt. David Wong, chief medical officer of the HHS Office of Minority Health, told LeadingAge members March 11 that 5,000 facilities nationwide had administered antibody treatments, but only about 35% of 900,000 available treatments had been used.

Skilled nursing providers who don’t have staff or space to operate their own infusion programs but want to participate can contact their state health department, which will then connect them with the Corps.

Patients should receive monoclonal antibody treatments within 10 days of a positive COVID-19 test under emergency use authorization. Wong encouraged providers to remain ready to provide quick treatments as cases continue to emerge even after successful vaccination campaigns.

“The benefit is greater the earlier you can get it,” Wong said. “The variants are also really changing the picture  for us a little bit. We need to think about more than vaccines.”

The new HHS funding for monoclonal antibodies will target communities that have high levels of COVID-19 and are determined to be particularly vulnerable based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s social vulnerability index. CDC has found that COVID-19 affects underserved communities and ethnic minorities disproportionately, and those patients are also underrepresented among early vaccine recipients — meaning outbreaks among such populations remain likely.

Some variants stunt treatments’ effect

The additional support for monoclonal antibody capabilities comes amid growing concerns about the treatments’ efficacy against some variants. 

On Wednesday, federal officials announced they had halted distribution of Eli Lilly’s bamlanivimab monoclonal antibody treatment in Arizona, California and Nevada due to concerns about a COVID-19 variant that renders it ineffective.

Eli Lilly acknowledged that the stoppage was due to SARS-CoV-2 variants first detected in California, while noting that its other treatment — which combines bamlanivimab with etesevimab — still neutralizes the variant of concern.
The FDA is confident that all three monoclonal antibody treatments authorized for use in the United States are effective against the quickly spreading B.1.1.7, or UK, variant. But several coronavirus variants appear to be gaining ground in the United States, with one unnamed mutation infecting dozens of vaccinated and unvaccinated nursing home residents and staff.