Pinderfields nurse becomes world's first volunteer for new Covid-19 treatment trials

A Pinderfields nurse has become the first person in the world to trial a new antibody treatment for Covid-19.

Karen Simeson, who is from Ossett and works at ICU, was the first to receive the treatment that uses man-made proteins that act like natural human antibodies in the immune system.

Up to 5,000 patients globally will be used to trial the effectiveness of biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca's "antibody cocktail", 1,000 of them in Britain.

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The UK Government has an in principle agreement which secures access to one million doses of the long-acting antibodies if they are successful in the trials

Nurse Karen Simeson is the first person to participate in the trials.Nurse Karen Simeson is the first person to participate in the trials.
Nurse Karen Simeson is the first person to participate in the trials.

The treatment mimics natural antibodies and has the potential to treat and prevent disease progression in patients already infected with the virus, as well as to be given as a preventative intervention prior to exposure to the virus, AstraZeneca has said.

Sir Mene Pangalos, executive vice president of biopharmaceuticals R&D at AstraZeneca, said the treatment can be injected or administered intravenously.

He added: “Today is an exciting milestone in the development of our long-acting combination which has the potential to provide immediate and long-lasting effect in both preventing and treating Covid-19 infections.

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"There is going to be a significant number of people - even in a world where vaccines are highly effective - who will not respond to vaccines, or in fact will not take vaccines."

Karen works in ICU at Pinderfields.Karen works in ICU at Pinderfields.
Karen works in ICU at Pinderfields.

Prof Andrew Ustianowski, of the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR), and chief investigator of the study said: "This is a really exciting development in the fight against Covid-19, which takes a very different approach to other studies involving vaccines.

"Vaccines work mainly by inducing a person's immune system to produce antibodies that inhibit or neutralise the virus, but some people don't respond well to vaccines, or cannot be given them.

"What we are investigating in this study is whether we can provide protection by giving antibodies, that have been shown to neutralise the virus, by injection into the muscle.

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"The hope is that this will then provide good protection for many months against infection."

People can still volunteer to take part in the trials, they must be 18 or over, must not have a previously-confirmed diagnosis of Covid-19 and must have an increased risk of vulnerability, such as being front line healthcare worker.

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