Monoclonal antibody treatments, so far recommended in severe COVID-19 patients or at risk of hospitalization, are less effective in neutralizing the omicron variant of the coronavirus, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned.
In its new weekly epidemiological report, the WHO indicates that the other two treatments recommended by the body against the disease, with corticosteroids and with interleukin-6 receptor antagonists, continue to be effective in critically ill patients.
The WHO insists that preliminary data in countries affected by the omicron such as the United Kingdom, South Africa or Denmark suggest a lower risk of hospitalization than with the delta variant, which the omicron is replacing as dominant in the world.
The diagnostic tests, both the PCR and the faster ones based on antigens, do not seem to lose effectiveness in the face of the new variant, reiterates the WHO, which on this occasion does not publish information on the behavior of the vaccines before omicron, since the report it is more abbreviated than in other weeks because of the Christmas holidays.
Nor does it offer statistics on the percentage of omicron cases in laboratory samples, which two weeks ago was only 0.1% and the previous week it was already 1.6%, although the percentage is expected to increase rapidly, taking into account that in In many countries the new strain is already dominant.
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