East Feliciana Parish is a small community in a huge ongoing fight with COVID-19 and local, state and federal officials hope that new treatment availability will be a game-changer in the battle.

The Louisiana Department of Health opened a mobile monoclonal antibody therapy treatment site on Plank Road in Clinton on Sept. 14 in the parking lot of the alternative learning center.

The Louisiana National Guard has set up centers across the state in the style of MASH (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) units in community setting as opposed to the hospitals and clinics that first distributed the antibody infusion therapy.

The CDC reports that only 35% of the East Feliciana population is fully vaccinated, but the antibody treatments can go a long way reducing hospitalizations and capping off the COVID-19 deaths in the parish now at 140.