LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — St. Claire HealthCare announced this week that it is now offering monoclonal antibody therapy for patients who have tested positive for COVID-19 or who may have been exposed to the virus.
"We plan to administer every single dose that we can get our hands-on," said Caitlin Guerin, PharmD, the pharmacy operations manager at St. Claire HealthCare.
The hospital began to offer the treatment through its "HomeCare program" in August, but in an email, a spokesperson noted that demand for the treatment has grown quickly.
In that email, the spokesperson said that the hospital had "repurposed the field tent located just outside the hospital's main entrance into a monoclonal antibody injection treatment center."
The decision to offer the treatment on hospital grounds came amidst a nationwide shortage in monoclonal antibodies.
Governor Andy Beshear announced Tuesday that the federal government would change the way the monoclonal antibody treatments were distributed, due to the supply shortage.
"We are going to be at a point within, I think, a week, where there are going to be people who want and need this treatment and we are not going to have enough of it," Beshear warned Thursday.
Guerin said that she is concerned about the shortage, but is grateful that the hospital is still able to get the product.
"We deal with shortages every day," she said. "We have dealt with many of them recently. There's a lot of medication that we need to help treat our patients right now that we just have to try every day and use whatever it is we can get."
