Windsor Regional Hospital has been approved to offer anti-viral and antibody treatments for high-risk COVID-19 patients, if they meet a certain criteria.
The hospital says the medication is to treat COVID-19 positive patients and must be administered within the first five days of infection. A full course of treatment is three pills twice daily for five days in a row.
Paxlovid is a pill form anti-vital treatment for high risk patients with mild to moderate COVID-19 symptoms, while Sotrovimab is an antibody infusion (IV) treatment for COVID-19 patients with mild to moderate COVID-19 symptoms.
Both treatments are shown to reduce the risk of hospitalization by up to 90 per cent.
If you fall under any of the categories below you may qualify for either Monoclonal Antibody Treatment or
Antiviral Treatment for Covid-19:
- are at higher risk of severe illness including:
o immunocompromised individuals (PDF) aged 18 and over regardless of vaccine status
o unvaccinated individuals aged 60 and over
o unvaccinated First Nation, Inuit and Métis individuals aged 50 and over
o unvaccinated individuals aged 50 and over with one or more risk factors (PDF)
Dr. Wassim Saad, Chief of Staff at Windsor Regional Hospital, says they expect only one to two people per day to qualify to receive one of the treatments.
Saad says there are many who think they may want it but may not fit the criteria.
"If you're a young, healthy 20, 30 or 40-year-old with no risk factors at all and are not immunocompromised, you would not qualify for this treatment," he says. "You're technically low risk to end up in the hospital or an ICU setting. Really we're targeting those highest risk populations - those that are older, unvaccinated, immunocompromised."
Saad says there is a limited supply for both of these drugs and that's why they are geared toward certain unvaccinated age groups and those who are immunocompromised, regardless of age.
"The selection criteria for who gets Sotrovimab or Paxlovid is going to be restricted to those at highest risk. The highest risk individuals at this time have been identified, as we know, those who are unvaccinated because that is the majority, if not all of the patients we have in our ICU currently," he says.
Saad stresses the medications are not a replacement for the vaccine and continues to ask the community to get vaccinated.
"Having these drugs in our arsenal is an added bonus but it is certianly not the golden ticket or the silver bullet, whatever you want to call it, for our way out of this pandemic. Vaccination still is our number one priority," he adds.
Both treatments have been approved by Health Canada, but are restricted to outpatient therapy.
If individuals think they may qualify for the treatments, they are encouraged to schedule an appointment at Windsor Regional Hospital's Ouellette Campus Clinical Assessment Centre.
With fuiles from Rusty Thomson and Rob Hindi