Abstract
Over the past years, SARS-CoV-2 has shown a worrisome tendency for immune escape mutations. Up until now, this development has culminated in the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 ‘Omicron’ variants. Indeed, monoclonal antibody drugs which had previously been effective and thus approved for COVID-19 treatment are ineffective in neutralizing the currently circulating ‘Omicron’ virus strains. This is remarkably different for polyclonal immunoglobulin (IG) preparations that are manufactured from plasma of thousands of COVID-19 convalescent and/or vaccinated donors: In the present study, it is shown that the neutralizing potency of currently released IG lots against ‘Omicron’ is still in a range for which successful treatment of COVID-19 in hospitalized (i.e., symptomatic) immunocompromised patients has been proposed. Consequentially, for a prophylactic situation – the typical setting of immunodeficient patients receiving periodic IG infusions –, it can be anticipated that the effectiveness of current IG lots is even more promising.
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