Gurugram: In what comes as a sigh of relief for the doctors attending to the patients amid the second wave of the pandemic, the first Covid-19 patient in India treated with a monoclonal antibodies cocktail was discharged from the Medanta Hospital in Gurugram, Haryana, on Wednesday.
Medanta Hospital chairman Dr Naresh Trehan said that an elderly man with multiple comorbidities went home after getting the jab, adding the “monoclonal antibodies cocktail has been extensively in the US and Europe”.
“The experience shows when given in first seven days of (Covid) infection, 70-80 per cent of people who are going to be entering hospitals for treatment will not need hospitalisation,” ANI quoted Dr Trehan as saying.
The Medanta Hospital chairman said they will continue to monitor the patient, who went home today.
“We are going to follow him. Virus multiplication drops especially in those people who have high virus load and also in those who are at high risk of severe infection,” Dr Trehan said.
"When Casirivimab and Imdevimab are injected into infected patient in early stage it blocks virus from entering cells of patient. It is working against COVID-19 and also effective against B.1.617 variant. This is a new weapon,” he added.
Dr Satya Prakash Yadav, Director, Pediatric Hematology Oncology and Bone Marrow Transplant, Medanta Hospital, too confirmed the same.
“Finally monoclonal antibodies cocktail to treat COVID-19 available in market and today first patient to get it Medanta is an 84-year-old gentleman with COVID-19. Let's hope it helps cure more patients with COVID-19,” he tweeted.