Tag: MSIF

#MSCOVID: updated international guidelines

The MSIF has just updated its COVID-19 International MS guidelines. What do they know that we don’t?

Advice regarding disease-modifying therapies for MS

Many disease modifying therapies (DMTs) for MS work by suppressing or modifying the immune system. Some MS medications might increase the likelihood of developing complications from a COVID-19 infection but this risk needs to be balanced with the risks of stopping or delaying treatment. We recommend that:

  • People with MS currently taking DMTs continue with their treatment.
  • People who develop symptoms of COVID-19 or test positive for the infection discuss their MS therapies with their MS care provider or another health care professional who is familiar with their care.
  • Before starting on any new DMT, people with MS discuss with their healthcare professional which therapy is the best choice for their individual disease course and disease activity in light of COVID-19 risk in the region. The following information should be considered during decision-making:
    • Interferons and glatiramer acetate are unlikely to impact negatively on COVID-19 severity. There is some preliminary evidence that interferons may reduce the need for hospitalisation due to COVID-19.
    • The limited evidence available suggests that people with MS taking dimethyl fumarate, teriflunomide, fingolimod and siponimod do not have an increased risk of more severe COVID-19 symptoms or death.
    • Therapies that target CD20 – ocrelizumab and rituximab – may be linked to an increased chance of being admitted to hospital or requiring intensive care treatment due to COVID-19. This preliminary finding requires further investigation.
    • More data on the use of natalizumab, alemtuzumab and cladribine during the COVID-19 pandemic are required to make any assessment of their safety.
  • People with MS who are currently taking anti-CD20 therapies (ocrelizumab, rituximab, ofatumumab or ublituximab) and are living in a community with a COVID-19 outbreak should be extra vigilant and may want to consider self-isolation to reduce their risk of infection.
  • People with MS who are currently taking alemtuzumab or cladribine and are living in a community with a COVID-19 outbreak should discuss their current lymphocyte counts with their healthcare professional. If their counts are considered to be low they should isolate as much as possible to reduce their risk.

Recommendations on delaying second or further doses of alemtuzumab, cladribine, ocrelizumab and rituximab due to the COVID-19 outbreak differ between countries. People who take these medications and are due for the next dose should consult their healthcare professional about the risks and benefits of postponing treatment.

CoI: multiple

Supporting the NHS & social medicine

Why don’t you support private prescribing and HSCT abroad?


The social media response to yesterday’s Barts-MS Hangout on HSCT has been rather mixed. A lot of commentators are being critical of us for creating too many hurdles regarding the access to HSCT and that we shouldn’t stop our patients going abroad for treatment. From my perspective, going abroad or to private units in the UK for HSCT is private healthcare at its worst. The countries who offer private HSCT, on a fee-for-service basis, are some of the countries with the largest health inequities in the world. These private HSCT units are in it for the money and hence are not that selective in whom they will treat. Can you pay? If you say yes, then you can be treated next week, but only after you put down a large deposit.

The founding principles of the NHS and other socialist healthcare systems are that healthcare is a basic human right, therefore it should be free at the point of access and it must be equitable. Private HSCT, private prescribing and even off-label prescribing undermine these principles and this worries me a lot. This is why I can’t and won’t openly support my patients travelling abroad for HSCT; you need to understand that when it comes to access to healthcare I am card-carrying socialist.

We at Barts-MS have been pushing our Essential Off-Label list to improve access to treatments in resource-poor environments. The problem with this is that adoption of off-label prescribing is patchy at best and creates pockets of prescribing in a desert of limited access. The latter creates massive variances in prescribing and inequity. This is why we decided a few years ago to hand the baton of promoting an Essential DMT List, including HSCT, which is on our list, to the MSIF (Multiple Sclerosis International Federation).

The MSIF is an umbrella organisation representing all of the MS Charities from across the world and is therefore in the best position to endorse and promote an Essential DMT list. The MSIF made the strategic decision to go via the WHO Essential Medicines List (WHO-EML). Over the last 2 years, we have actively been working on this and I have had the privilege of co-chairing the MSIF WHO-EML Taskforce with Professor Brenda Banwell. We managed to get an international consensus on three DMTs (glatiramer acetate, fingolimod and ocrelizumab) to be considered for the WHO-EML. Please note HSCT did not make the shortlist mainly because we are trying to address the unmet need in resource-poor countries. Our application is now online and we hope the wider MS community get behind our application. Our application is more than about these three DMTs, it is a political campaign to get the WHO and the world to realise that MS is a problem across the globe; MS is not just a rich world disease. For example, did you know that there are more people with MS in India than there are in the UK?

So to our critics out there, we at Barts-MS have a wider responsibility to the MS community and to support the NHS and the pwMS living in the UK by trying as best we can to uphold the founding principles of the NHS.

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