The World Health Organisation (WHO) and its partners have organised an international initiative, named, ‘Solidarity’ for conducting clinical trials for finding a potential cure for Covid-19. The Solidarity Therapeutics Trials is the world’s largest randomised control trials, which is being conducted in over 405 hospitals in 30 countries, involving around 11,300 patients. The multi-arm trials were conducted in various countries and emphasised on four major drugs or their combinations including ‘remdesivir’, ‘hydroxychloroquine (HCQ)’, ‘ritonavir/lopinavir’ and ‘lopinavir/ritonavir/interferon beta 1a’.
The trials for HCQ-arm was temporarily on halt in the month of May as WHO had declared that it would not be including patients in the trials. This had happened due to a study that was published in the medical journal Lancet which questioned the safety of anti-malarial drugs on Covid-19 patients. Later, Lancet withdrew the study and apologised for the same.
WHO stated that the trails were conducted in over 30 countries and the effects of these four drugs were observed on the patients. They considered various factors like overall mortality, initiation of ventilation, and duration of hospital stay. According to WHO, the patients for these trials were being enrolled in over 400 hospitals in around 35 countries and 3,500 patients have already been enrolled in 17 countries. In addition to this, about 100 countries have either joined or considered joining the trial and 60 of them are currently being supported by WHO.
These trails were also approved and conducted in India, including four hospitals located in Jodhpur, Ahmedabad, Chennai, and Bhopal.
Remdesivir, developed by American pharmaceutical company, namely, Gilead Sciences Inc., is a broad-spectrum antiviral drug. It was previously used for conducting tests on patients with Ebola virus. This drug was the most promising among the other arms against MERS (Middle-East Respiratory Syndrome) and SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), which are caused by coronavirus.
The two arms, ritonavir and lopinavir, were tested by creating combinations for both with an additional substance, named, ‘interferon beta 1a’. This substance falls under a class, named ‘cytokines’. Cytokines are present in immune cell secretions, used for other cells to act against imminent infections. Ritonavir and lopinavir are used as HIV protease inhibitors for improving immunity and reducing the risk of complications, such as tuberculosis, in an HIV-positive person.
The interim results of these trials were disclosed by WHO on October 15, 2020. A pre-print paper, based on the results of these trials, was uploaded at medRxiv. These results stated that none of the four drug regimens have had any effect on the mortality of the Covid-19 patients.
Thus, the authors of this study have quoted these results as ‘unpromising’ as they have shown no evidence that these drugs have reduced the requirement for ventilation or the duration of hospital stay.
Courtesy: Indian Express