UDOH opens new COVID-19 monoclonal antibody therapy facility
Sep 22, 2021, 10:34 PM | Updated: 10:52 pm
MURRAY, Utah — The Utah Department of Health opened a new monoclonal antibody therapy facility in hopes of treating the most vulnerable patients who have recently tested positive for the virus to prevent hospitalizations.
The facility is located in the parking lot of the Intermountain Employee Services Building at 5245 S College Dr. in Murray.
The health department says since November 2020 approximately 7,100 Utahns have received monoclonal antibody infusions, preventing an estimated 900 hospitalizations.
Sheri and Phil Cox, both in their mid-60s, received the treatment in January before it was well-known. They believe it prevented them from ending up in the hospital.
“I think it probably saved my wife’s life and kept me from getting real sick,” Phil Cox said. “We went to where the people go to get cancer infusion… they cleared out a room for us with the big TV on and we sat with IVs in our arms for about two hours and a half hours.”
“It probably saved my wife’s life and kept me from getting real sick.”
So far 7K Utahns received monoclonal antibody infusions, preventing around 900 hospitalizations.
At 10:00, hear from a couple who received the treatment plus the new facility making it more accessible @KSL5TV pic.twitter.com/8D4CpLcT8m— Ashley Moser (@AshleyMoser) September 23, 2021
The treatment is administered through intravenous within 7 days of symptoms. It is patterned after the body‘s natural response to the virus and designed to stick to and neutralize it.
An intermountian study on the treatment found that of the 600 patients who were given the drug, 57% were less likely to need hospitalization.
That is promising news to Senate President Stuart Adams. He hoped by opening up a facility for the therapy, and others like it across the state, will make the treatment more accessible, something the state has been working on.
“As we see the hospitalization rates increase and we see the fatalities increase this could be the answer,” Adams said. “We saw that the hospitals can do the infusions but they didn’t know who actually qualified for the treatments. We talked to the health department and they were doing contact tracing and they knew who qualified but couldn’t do the infusions so we married the two together.”
The Murray facility can treat up to 50 patients a day. The state department of health is saving this treatment for the most vulnerable patients who test positive for COVID-19.
