SARASOTA- Sarasota Memorial Hospital was one of the first hospitals in the country to test experimental COVID-19 drugs that President Trump received to help fight off COVID-19, and patients in Sarasota can have access to the same medications.
Sarasota Memorial Hospital says when a patient is hospitalized with COVID-19, they work to give them Remdesivir and the Regeneron antibody cocktail early.
“In the first few days of the COVID infection,” Director of Clinical Research Dr. Kirk Voelker said. “We’re trying to attack the COVID virus itself and decrease the viral burden.”
Now, that the President has taken the drugs, they could see more people asking to enroll in the trial.
“Regeneron was expecting a surge in requests,” Epidemiologist Dr. Manny Gordillo said. “We haven’t seen that, it may be because the prevalence on the infection here is relatively low.”
In Sarasota, you don’t have to be hospitalized to access the trial. SMH has two other trials… one for people diagnosed with complicating factors.
“If I were to contact COVID and I had co-morbidities, I was older, I had diabetes, asthma, COPD,” Dr. Voelker said. “I would want to do everything I could, and these people can now contact our research center.”
You can also qualify if you live or care for someone infected with COVID.
“They might have parents with diabetes or obesity,” Dr. Voelker said. “Those people at home can be enrolled and receive the same antibody to protect them against that maybe young person who has COVID.”
If you aren’t sick, it’s important to continue taking precautions.
“We’re not ready to let your guard down,” Dr. Voelker said. “And it’s probably going to be several more months into the first quarter of 2021 until we’re not doing this, and maybe even longer.”
For more information on how to find out if you are eligible for a clinical trial and how to participate visit https://www.smh.com/COVIDtrials.
