New criteria at Singing River Health System to receive monoclonal antibody treatments

This time last year, patients who tested positive for COVID and were showing symptoms were strongly encouraged to ask to receive monoclonal antibody treatments.

However, with the recent surge of COVID cases across the state and the nation, the treatment is harder to come by.

Ove the last five days, more than 3,000 COVID tests have been collected at Singing River’s drive-thru COVID testing site in Ocean Springs and their other testing locations.

Forty-two percent of the tests came back positive. Due to a supply shortage, the Mississippi State Department of Health is recommending hospitals limit treatment to high-risk patients. State Health Official Dr. Thomas Dobbs said, “As far as therapeutics, there are some exciting developments, but there are also a lot of limitations. In Mississippi we did a really good job using monoclonal antibodies during the Delta surge, but at present we have a very limited supply of monoclonal antibodies that are made available to us. As soon as they’re made available we do have them distributed immediately from the federal distributor to locations throughout the state.”

In response, Singing River Health System is only recommending infusions for those who meet one or multiple of the criteria which mainly includes COVID positive patients who are older, have chronic medical issues, and are immunocompromised.

SRHS also says eligibility varies on severity of illness and individual risk of being hospitalized due to COVID.