JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Patients interested in receiving monoclonal antibodies were ready and waiting Tuesday morning outside a new treatment center on Jacksonville’s Southside before the doors even opened at 9 a.m.
The site at the Southside Senior Center on Beach Boulevard was one of five additional monoclonal antibody treatment sites the Florida Department of Health opened on Tuesday around the state.
It’s the second state-supported site in the Jacksonville area to offer the Regeneron treatment.
In Jacksonville, free Regeneron treatment is also available at the Joseph Lee Center at 5120 Perry St. That site ,which is also open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. seven days a week, was state-supported and is now being overseen by a vendor. Appointments can be made at: www.patientportalfl.com. For more information, call CDR Health: 850-344-9637. Or call the Duval County Health Department: 904-253-1000.
The new Regeneron site in Jacksonville offers a more convenient option for people on the Southside, Arlington and the Beaches.
If you can’t make it to either site, the department of health has a treatment locator on its website. Each site is labeled with which type of treatment it offers.
The new site isn’t listed yet, but it will be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. seven days a week. The treatments are by appointment ONLY and require a positive COVID-19 test. News4JAX is working to learn how patients can make an appointment since the Florida DOH website has not yet been updated.
Dr. Jonathan Kantor with the Penn Center for Global Health said the omicron variant may be more resistant to Regeneron.
“You know, unfortunately, with the rise of omicron, there were early reports when it was first coming out from the laboratories, you know, basically suggesting that omicron -- that all those mutations had made it more resistant to the monoclonal antibodies,” Kantor said.
Kantor said sotrovimab is the only antibody treatment that works in preventing serious infection with the omicron variant, the variant that makes up more than 95% of the COVID infections in the US.
“It’s just that luck of the draw,” Kantor said. “It came out to be the one that retained efficacy against it, while the others, you know, because of all those different mutations in omicron weren’t quite as effective.”
The U.S. ordered 600,000 doses of sotrovimab last week. It’s unclear when states will be getting those doses.
Companies like Regeneron and Eli Lilly say they can quickly develop new omicron-targeting antibodies, but those aren’t expected to launch for at least several months.