The U.S. government on April 5 immediately halted all shipments of a COVID-19 treatment to states and ordered health care providers not to use the drug.
The actions were taken because of the increasing prevalence of BA.2, a subvariant of Omicron, which is a variant of the CCP virus, the virus causes COVID-19.
Data so far indicate that the monoclonal antibody called sotrovimab doesn’t work against BA.2, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Regulators initially told doctors in eight states on March 27 to stop administering sotrovimab to COVID-19 patients. Several days later, the FDA expanded the action, which essentially revokes the emergency use authorization granted in 2021, to 14 additional states.
With the April 5 move, the monoclonal therapy “is no longer authorized to treat COVID-19 in any U.S. region due to increases in the proportion of COVID-19 cases caused by the Omicron BA.2 subvariant,” the FDA said in a statement.
