Antiviral drug Sotrovimab adds to war on Covid-19

The Morrison government has secured shipment of more than 7000 doses of Sotrovimab, as it attempts to broaden its armoury of effective Covid-19 treatments.

Infectious diseases expert Robert Booy said the Sotrovimab doses will help Australia to learn to live with the virus in a new phase of the pandemic. Picture: Getty Images

The federal government has ­secured shipment of 7700 doses of Sotrovimab, a drug designed to treat mild to moderate Covid-19 infections in children and adults, as it attempts to broaden its armoury of coronavirus treatments.

While the government awaits approval of the Moderna vaccine by the Therapeutic Goods ­Administration, Health Minister Greg Hunt confirmed on Sunday that the regulator would also assess the use of the newly developed antibody treatment Sotrovimab, which decreases the severity of Covid-19 infections. Mr Hunt said the antiviral drug was “not a silver bullet” but would provide effective treatment against hospitalisation.

The new treatment, manufactured by pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, is administered via IV infusion to ­patients who do not require oxygen and who are at risk of progressing to severe disease. After proving 85 per cent effective in reducing hospitalisations in its initial phase of clinical trials, GSK said the drug was also capable of resisting “all known variants of concern”.

The European Commission signed an agreement last month with GSK for the supply of more than 200,000 doses of Sotrovimab, while the US Food and Drug Administration granted its emergency use to “high-risk ­patients” with moderate cases of Covid-19. The drug has since been approved for emergency use in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Singapore, with Canada requesting its first shipment at the end of July.

According to early data ­released by the United Arab Emirates, of the 6000 patients who received Sotrovimab, 97 per cent made a full recovery within 14 days, with no deaths recorded.

While the treatment is expected to be available for use this year, chief health officer Paul Kelly said it was one of hundreds of treatments the government was looking at around the world.

“This medicine is not for everybody. It will be mostly aimed at people that are not vaccinated and people who are at highest risk of severe disease,” he said.

University of Sydney infectious diseases expert Robert Booy said use of the drug would mark a positive step towards a ­future where “we need to live with the virus”. “Sotrovimab was developed almost 20 years ago in response to the original SARS. It not only kills off infected cells, but it can produce white cells that also attack the virus,” he said.