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There probably isn’t much that German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s administration would take over from Donald Trump, but the treatment the former US president received when he was diagnosed with Covid-19 last year seems to have caught her attention.
Germany has bought 200,000 doses of monoclonal antibody medication for $ 487 million, and next week the country will be the first in the European Union to use it, Health Minister Jens Spahn told the Sunday edition of the tabloid Bild.
“The injection of these antibodies can help prevent early stage patients from developing a serious condition,” he said. Germany’s Ministry of Health did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Bloomberg.
Trump received experimental treatment from Regeneron Pharmaceutical Inc. in October. after he was diagnosed with Covid-19. The then president was so impressed that he said he wanted to make it available for free to Americans, which in the end didn’t happen. According to news report DPA, at least some of the doses ordered by Germany also come from Regeneron.
Spahn, one of Merkel’s possible successors, has recently come under political pressure over the slow roll-out of Germany’s vaccination program in Germany. According to the Robert Koch Institute, 1.63 million Germans have been vaccinated so far, which is less than 2% of the country’s total population.