President Donald Trump is delighted with his treatment with a cocktail of antibodies, which he himself suggested and which made him feel good again after just one day, he claims. In a video message Trump promised to provide all Americans with “the same treatment as your president’s” for free: “We have hundreds of thousands of doses.” However, the question is whether this medication can be quickly accessible and whether it will be enough for everyone. –
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It is no secret that Covid patient Donald Trump underwent special treatment that is not just for everyone – if that were desired at all. After all, scientists are not at all sure whether all medications were justified for Trump. According to Lander Foquet, a Flemish biomedicist who works for a pharmaceutical company in the US, Trump’s treatment actually consisted of three therapies. “In addition to the cocktail of antibodies, he has also been given an antiviral, Remdesivir, and steroids,” he explains.
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The antibody cocktail is an experimental drug from Regeneron, a US biotechnology firm. “Instead of getting a vaccine and starting to make antibodies yourself, those antibodies are produced in the lab. You will then be injected with a very large dose ”, says Foquet. These antibodies must stop the virus from spreading, so that the body has time to recognize the virus ‘as an enemy’ and your own immune system starts the attack. Whether that Regeneron antibody treatment is indeed responsible for the US president’s supposed miraculous cure – as he sees it himself – is difficult to ascertain, according to Foquet, because Trump’s treatment “is not part of a controlled trial.” The president was also given Remdesivir, an antiviral drug that works like Tamiflu in the flu, the biomedicine said. “That stops the virus from multiplying in the cells.” Trump was further treated with steroids, which is strange because they are usually only used for very sick patients who need extra oxygen or even have to be on a ventilator. Steroids are useful there because they can temper an overreaction of the body to the virus, but in less ill patients they can weaken the immune system due to their inhibitory effect.
Trump called his contracting the coronavirus a “godsend in disguise,” because otherwise he would never have been able to experience first-hand how well the drug worked with antibodies. According to his doctor, Sean Conley, Trump has had no symptoms of the coronavirus for more than 24 hours and has been fever-free for more than four days. It made him promise to make the drug available to everyone for free. Biomedicist Lander Foquet doubts whether that is really possible. He does not believe it is possible to produce enough antibodies for the entire population in the US. “It takes a lot of high-tech industry to make a quality product and to give everyone the large amount they have received,” he told Radio 1.
Watch Lander’s conversation about Trump’s treatment here
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