Indonesia Records 2,604 New COVID-19 Cases, 2 Deaths

Jakarta: The Indonesian government today recorded 2,604 COVID-19 cases, bringing the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country to 4,280,248.
 
From Thursday noon to Friday noon, the total number of recovered COVID-19 patients in the country increased by 811 to 4,121,928.
 
In the past 24 hours, Indonesia's official COVID-19 death toll was up by 2 to 144,201.

COVID-19 Drugs

WHO has recommended two new drugs for COVID-19, providing yet more options for treating the disease. The extent to which these medicines will save lives depends on how widely available and affordable they will be.

The first drug, baricitinib, is strongly recommended for patients with severe or critical COVID-19. It is part of a class of drugs called Janus kinase (JAK) inhibitors that suppress the overstimulation of the immune system. WHO recommends that it is given with corticosteroids.
Baricitinib is an oral drug, used in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. It provides an alternative to other arthritis drugs called Interleukin-6 receptor blockers, recommended by WHO in July 2021.

WHO has also conditionally recommended the use of a monoclonal antibody drug, sotrovimab, for treating mild or moderate COVID-19 in patients who are at high risk of hospitalization. This includes patients who are older, immunocompromised, having underlying conditions like diabetes, hypertension, and obesity, and those unvaccinated.

Sotrovimab is an alternative to casirivimab-imdevimab, a monoclonal antibody cocktail recommended by WHO in September 2021. Studies are ongoing on the effectiveness of monoclonal antibodies against Omicron but early laboratory studies show that sotrovimab retains its activity.


(WAH)