Community Health Network (CHN) in Texas is offering free Infusion Therapy or IV treatments for COVID-19 patients who are high-risk. For now, Houston is the center of infusion therapy.
If a COVID-19 patient is high-risk, they can get treatments from the Scarsdale Family Health Center or the Angleton Internal Medicine & Primary Care. CHN has a call line so that team members can answer questions from the public regarding the IV treatment. They can call CHN from Monday through Friday from 7.30 a.m. to 7.00 p.m.
For the weekend schedule, and the lines are open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The number is 281-954-4850.
The treatments will help lessen the impact of the virus on patients and aid them in their journey to a faster recovery. Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who tested positive for COVID-19 four days ago and has recently announced that he is already negative from the virus, promised that he would order the opening of more clinics regarding the infusion treatment. The governor himself underwent such treatment per the recommendation of his doctor.
Aside from Texas, Florida will also open free monoclonal antibody centers to help treat patients as both states’ cases continue to increase. The officials in Texas and Florida turned to infusion therapy to keep more people out of the hospitals and save more lives. There will be nine antibody infusion centers in Texas, while there will be five in Florida.
According to Dr. Arturo Casadevall, chair of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health, the reason why people with COVID-19 have to be in the hospital is because of the inflammation in their lungs. The antibody infusion treatment will neutralize the virus and hopefully not result in the inflammation of the lungs.
Through infusion therapy, monoclonal antibody treatments are injected directly into the vein via an IV infusion. The medical staff authorized to do this often use the same equipment for chemotherapy patients.
