The COVID-19 patients at high risk of hospitalisation or those with severe disease should be given a combination of two antibody treatments, according to latest World Health Organization guidelines published in The BMJ on Friday.
However, Cipla was very clear it does not want to get into vaccine manufacturing.
Mohabbat Singh was administered a cocktail of Casirivimab and Imdevimab at the Medanta Hospital as part of the "single dose infusion-based treatment" on Tuesday and then kept under observation.
The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation has granted restricted emergency use authorisation to two new vaccines and a drug for COVID-19, taking the number of preventives and treatments available in India to 12.
According to medical practitioners, the treatment is especially useful in controlling disease among those who have not received the vaccine or got only one shot and also the high-risk contacts of a patient.
The highly transmissible Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 has mutated further to form the 'Delta plus' or 'AY.1' variant but there is no immediate cause for concern in India as its incidence in the country is still low, scientists in New Delhi said.
While virologists say theoretically the vaccine that works on Delta should work on the Delta Plus variant as well, more research is needed.
'When you are on these drugs, there is a possibility that you come to the hospital late, just by virtue of the fact that you believe that things are going to turn around, because you are on all these medicines.'
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