Britain urgently needs to stockpile a Covid drug that could be life-saving for half a million extremely vulnerable Britons, activists say.
Evusheld, developed by AstraZenecawill allow people who were less likely to have an immune response from the Covid vaccines to return to normal life, they claim.
The biennial injection was approved by drug regulatory authorities in March after a study found it reduced the risk of falling with Covid by nearly 80 percent.
But the Department of Health and Social Care has not ordered a single dose — despite the therapy being used for months in the US and Israel.
Lord Mendelsohn, co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Vulnerable Groups to Pandemics, and the charity Blood Cancer UK have called on the government to procure supplies as Covid cases and hospitalizations rise.
Evusheld, which costs £800 per dose antibodies – immune proteins – that have been modified in a lab to make them last longer.
The drug is designed for people who are so immunocompromised that they cannot mount their own immune response to Covid.
It comes as official figures show that more than 400,000 vulnerable Britons are still protected, despite those guidelines being abolished in April.
Evusheld, developed by AstraZeneca, could help people who didn’t get an immune response from the vaccine return to normal life, activists claim
Britain registered 1,911 virus recordings on Monday, a 331 percent increase from the 443 recorded on June 4.
Covid infections have risen to just over 1.8 million in England according to the latest data from the Office of National Statistics
One of the main hurdles could be that it’s unclear how well Evusheld works on Omicron and its sub-variants.
The drug is designed to target the original variant, and new strains are better at avoiding antibodies.
Britain registered 1,911 virus recordings on Monday, a 331 percent increase from the 443 recorded on June 4.
However, official figures show that only 37.5 percent of patients in hospital are admitted primarily because they are unwell with the virus.
Covid infections have risen to just over 1.8 million in England according to the latest data from the Office of National Statistics
Results from a six-month trial of Evusheld published last year showed it reduces the risk of getting sick with Covid by 77 percent.
But MailOnline was told in March that health officials are concerned it may not work as well on Omicron.
Write in a letter in The times today, Gemma Peters, chief executive of Blood Cancer UK, said: ‘In England and Wales, about 100 people with blood cancers die from Covid for a month.
“Now that the infection rate is extremely high, it is essential that they receive all possible protection.
“The government is rightly proud of the way the vaccine program has protected the general population, but we still need to see the same urgency in protecting people whose weakened immune systems mean the vaccines haven’t worked as well.”
She called on newly appointed Health Minister Steve Barclay to make the drug available to the NHS as his first act in the role.
Mr Barclay took over the role on Tuesday after Sajid Javid became the first in a string of more than 50 government members to resign this week.
Boris Johnson agreed to step down as prime minister today under pressure, and it is not yet clear who will become health minister under new leadership.
In the letter, the activists said: ‘People with weakened immune systems still die from Covid much more often than the rest of the population.
“They can’t afford to wait. They deserve better.’
This chart shows the number of deaths directly caused by Covid in England and Wales. The number of deaths recorded in these countries is currently well below that of previous waves earlier year and a fraction of the number seen at the start of 2021
Data from the Sanger Institute shows that BA.5 was responsible for 58.6 percent of all infections it did in the week to June 25 — a fifth more than a week earlier, when it caused 48.8 percent of cases
The six-month drug trials were conducted last year when the Delta variant was dominant.
It was shown to have even higher efficacy than two doses of vaccine, which decrease significantly in six months.
But there are questions about how well the antibody cocktail will perform against Omicron and its sub-variants BA.4 and BA.5, which are currently dominant in the UK and are believed to be more resistant to antibodies.
Evusheld, also called AZD7442, contains two types of lab-made antibodies and is given to patients by injection into the arm, similar to some vaccines.
It’s made by extracting the proteins from patients who have recovered from the virus and then manipulating them in a lab to make them last longer than natural antibodies.
They bind to the virus’s spike protein — which it uses to invade cells — to stop an infection or stop the virus from multiplying when it infects.
Antibodies are created by the immune system in response to the virus, either through vaccination or natural infection, to help the body fight if it is knocked out in the future.
Current vaccines train a person’s body to recognize Covid, but the immune system still has to make its own antibodies. The latest therapy skips that process, making the antibodies readily available.
Patients undergoing chemotherapy, which reduces the effectiveness of the body’s immune system, or who take immunosuppressants after an organ transplant are among those who do not always receive full protection from needlesticks.