In the hard battle against COVID-19 to find a vaccine or a medicine to cure the deadly virus across the globe, various research organizations and pharmacy companies are engaged in research. Every day we come to hear about a medicine or the vaccine. After months of planning and testing a handful of repurposed drugs that studies have found from around the world, researchers in the largest scientific study for potential COVID-19 treatments has found many of them are ineffective against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The World Health Organization's Solidarity trial is the world’s largest ongoing randomized control trial of potential COVID-19 therapeutics.
Remdesivir has little or no effect on COVID-19 patients: WHO
2,750 volunteers were give Remdesivir, 954 HCQ, 1,411 Lopinavir, 651 Interferon plus Lopinavir, 1,412 only Interferon, and 4,088 placebo (no drug) which includes 11,266 patients hospitalized with COVID-19, spread across 30 countries. The trial found that there was little or no effect of these drugs on the outcome of COVID-19 over a 28-day period. To be noted, few countries have given emergency–use authorization to these drugs. The WHO, FDA, Oxford University and other countries pulled the plug on their ongoing trials. WHO also discontinued anti-HIV drug combination lopinavir/ritonavir trials in July after finding the ineffectiveness. WHO Chief Sowmya Swaminathan said we’re looking at monoclonal anti-bodies, we're looking at immune modulators and some of the newer anti-viral drugs that have been developed in the last few months.
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Remdesivir has been the frontrunner in re-purposed drugs with various studies showing a positive recovery rate in patients. The recovery time is five days in a trial comprise 1,062 patients. However, WHO needs more robust evidence from multiple studies. "We are concerned the data from this open-label global trial has not undergone the rigorous review required to allow for constructive scientific discussion, particularly given the limitations of the trial design”, said WHO.
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