Cooley, a liver transplant recipient in Duck Hill, Mississippi, got the antibody drug, called Evusheld, from her transplant team at the University of Mississippi Medical Center with no trouble. But Taylor, of Cincinnati, was denied the treatment by two hospitals near her home. And Mallett, a physician in Portland, Oregon, had to drive five hours to a hospital willing to give her a dose.
As much of the nation unmasks amid plummeting caseloads and fresh hope that the pandemic is fading, the Biden administration has insisted it will continue protecting the more than 7 million Americans with weakened immune systems who remain vulnerable to COVID-19. Evusheld, which was developed by AstraZeneca with financial support from the federal government, is essential to its strategy.
But there is so much confusion about the drug among health care providers that roughly 80% of the available doses are sitting unused in warehouses and on pharmacy and hospital shelves — even as patients like Taylor, 67, and Mallett, 38, go to great lengths, often without success, to get them.
Because they have a weakened response to the coronavirus vaccine and may not be able to fight off COVID-19, many immunocompromised people have continued to isolate themselves at home and feel left behind as the country reopens. Evusheld, administered in two consecutive injections, appears to offer long-lasting protection — perhaps for half a year — giving it considerable appeal for this group.
For now, though, the drug is in short supply. Because it is authorized only for emergency use, it is being distributed by the federal government. The Biden administration has purchased 1.7 million doses — enough to fully treat 850,000 people — and had nearly 650,000 doses ready for distribution to the states as of this past week, according to a senior federal health official. But only about 370,000 doses have been ordered by the states, and fewer than one-quarter of those have been used.
Read more: https://news.yahoo.com/high-demand-drug-prevent-covid-124654993.html
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