Week 3, September 2024: Preventive Measures

The COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped global health strategies, pushing preventive measures to the forefront of public attention. Now, there is a renewed focus on fortifying defenses against future viral threats and ways to improve the hospitalization rates. Here, we will explore the latest advancements in post-pandemic prevention strategies and the broader landscape of public health. 

This week, researchers from the University of Colorado published a paper in JAMA relating a new machine learning method for allocating scarce COVID-19 monoclonal antibodies during the pandemic, which could cut hospital cases by a third! Using electronic health record data, machine learning methods, namely policy learning trees, can improve the allocation of scarce therapeutics; therefore, policy learning tree–based allocation should be considered in potential future episodes of therapeutic scarcity, including pandemics.

In the US, Covid-19 has been circulating at higher levels throughout summer, with data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing that levels of viral activity in wastewater have steadily risen since May. Two newer variants, KP.3.1.1 and KP.2.3, are responsible for over half of all cases. 

Because of these new variants, the FDA is limiting the use of Invivyd’s COVID-19 pre-exposure prophylactic antibody Pemgarda (pemivibart). They renewed the emergency use authorization last month, but with a notable restriction on its use depending on the prevalence of virus variants. However, Invivyd also published positive findings from the ongoing Phase III CANOPY study showing an 84% relative risk reduction in symptomatic COVID-19 after prophylaxis with Pemgarda compared with placebo.  

Also this past week, the NIH has established a pandemic preparedness research network to conduct research on high-priority pathogens most likely to threaten human health with the goal of developing effective vaccines and monoclonal antibodies. They expect to commit $100M per year to fund the program called ReVAMPP. The seven participating research centers awarded are: Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Research Triangle Institute, University of California, Irvine, University of Texas Medical Branch, University of Washington, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and Washington University, St. Louis.