Sign up here to receive our daily coronavirus newsletter on what you need to know and subscribe to our Covid-19 podcast for the latest news and reviews.
There is probably not much that German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government would adopt from Donald Trump, but the treatment the former U.S. President received when he was diagnosed with Covid-19 last year seems to have caught his attention.
Germany bought 200,000 doses of monoclonal antibody drugs for $ 487 million, and next week the country will be the first in the European Union to use them, Health Minister Jens Spahn said in the Sunday edition of the Bild tabloid .
“Injecting these antibodies can help prevent patients at risk in the early stages from developing a serious illness,” he said. The German Ministry of Health did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Bloomberg.
Trump received an experimental treatment from Regeneron Pharmaceutical Inc. in October, after being diagnosed with Covid-19. The then president was so impressed that he said he wanted to freely available to Americans, which did not happen. At least some of the doses ordered by Germany also come from Regeneron, according to the DPA news agency.
Spahn, one of Merkel’s possible successors, recently came under political pressure due to the slow launch of Germany’s vaccination program in Germany. According to the Robert Koch Institute, 1.63 million Germans have already been vaccinated, which represents less than 2% of the country’s total population.