PORTSMOUTH, Va. — Naval Medical Center Portsmouth is one of five military bases across the nation leading a study that could impact the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lt. Commander Tida Lee is an infectious disease physician. Alongside her team, she is the Primary Investigator on the study -- which is being conducted at the base -- to help slow the spread of COVID-19 in high-risk areas.
The study is called STORM CHASER. It stands for Study To Optimally Reduce Morbidity in Care Homes And Sites with Enhanced Risk. This study is primarily using monoclonal antibodies.
"These antibodies would fight off whatever virus or bacteria that is causing an inflammation in your system," explained Lt. Cmdr. Lee. "Monoclonal antibodies are us giving the antibodies to fight off the infection here and now when you receive the monoclonal antibody."
It means instead of waiting for your body to naturally take time to create the antibodies, these would act faster and help prevent symptoms from getting worse...potentially slowing down the spread of the virus.
Lee says more than a thousand volunteers are already in the trials and they already went through the first two phases.
"What we're looking for are 25 COVID events," said Lee. "The individuals were injected with the placebo...or the product. Of those 25 COVID events, we'll look at how many were placebo and how many were of the product. If it's more placebo...then we'll look further into how effective the monoclonal antibodies actually were."
Lee says in their preliminary studies, they found the monoclonal antibodies are able to neutralize the concerning variants such as the Brazilian and South African variants of the virus. If the study shows strong results, she says this could have a significant impact on the coronavirus pandemic.
Naval Medical Center Portsmouth says it is no longer looking for volunteers at this time.
They will be monitoring their current set of volunteers over the next 15 months to find more data.