HARLINGEN — He’s been on the front lines of COVID-19 since it struck last year.
And Michael Muniz is still at it.
“We go into people’s homes and do infusions,” said Muniz, a pharmacist and owner of My NuRX Pharmacy, which he opened last year at 1614 W. Filmore Ave.
The “infusions” refer to the administering of monoclonal antibodies to COVID-19 patients. The goal of this therapy is to help prevent hospitalizations, reduce viral loads and lessen symptom severity, says Dr. Howard J. Huang, medical director of the Houston Methodist Lung Transplant Center.
Muniz and Vanessa Cobarrubias, physician assistant at My NuRx, perform about 30 or 40 infusions per day at the pharmacy and at patients’ homes. They also manage the medications at the Regional Infusion Center at the former location of the Ronald McDonald House at 1720 Treasure Hills Blvd.
Health officials both here and elsewhere have emphasized repeatedly the crucial importance of infusion centers to reduce hospitalizations and mortality rates.
Muniz is no exception.
“We are seeing more and more kids needing it to keep them out of the hospitals,” he said. “It’s important.”
So devoted is he to this cause that he has little time for hobbies or pastimes; he and Cobarrubias often stay up until 2 a.m. giving infusions.
“I can’t just sit back and have fun when people are sick,” he said.
At My NuRX he also does COVID-19 testing and vaccinations. However, in spite of the heavy work load and long hours fighting the COVID-19 wars, he also addresses other important health matters.
My NuRX is a compounding pharmacy, which means it offers medications that can’t be found at other pharmacies. A compounding pharmacy prepares treatments and medications specific to individual patients.
“What we do is wellness counseling, nutrition,” he said. “Our main focus to get patients off meds for things like diabetes and hypertension, because most of that is due to poor lifestyles. We work with doctors to de-prescribe medications.”
Muniz, a 1996 graduate of Harlingen High School South, has been a pharmacist for eight years. Before opening his own shop last year, he worked for the family business at Muniz Rio Grande Pharmacy.
“I wanted to be able to spend more time with my patients,” said the father of four children.
No sooner had he opened his pharmacy than he was called away to El Paso to work at an alternative care site (ACS) for COVID-19 patients. He left the pharmacy in the care of his business partner Christine Torralba and headed to El Paso where he worked on the front lines of COVID-19 until January.
At that time, the ACS was closed there, and he was transferred to another site in Austin where he remained in March. That’s when he returned to Harlingen, where he was asked to manage the medications at the infusion center at Casa de Amistad.
That center served a vital purpose in bringing down COVID-19 infection rates, at which time it was closed. However, with the spread of the Delta variant, he’s once again managing the medications at the new infusion center — and doing house calls into the late hours.
