More than 45 countries across the globe are now going to participate in a multi-country trial to identify potential cures for the COVID-19 outbreak. A patient in Norway is the first to enrol in a global solidarity trial testing launched by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Four drugs or drug combinations already licensed and used for other illness will be tested for the treatment of the coronavirus.
Just 60 days after the genetic sequence of COVID-19 was shared by China, the first vaccine trial was announced on 18th March calling it a Solidarity Trial.
Solidarity trial is a multi-arm, a multicountry clinical trial for potential coronavirus therapy. The drug to be tested is the anti-viral drug Remdesivir, the combinations of two HIV drugs and Anti-malarial drug Chloroquine. These drugs have shown some evidence of effectiveness against SARS-CoV-2 virus which causes COVID-19.
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director-General of WHO, in a press conference on 27th March, said that the first patients will be enrolled in the solidarity trial in Norway and Spain. “This is a historic trial which will dramatically cut the time needed to generate robust evidence about what drugs work. More than 45 countries are contributing to the trial, and more have expressed interest. The more countries who join the trial, the faster we will have results,” he said.
When WHO made the announcement, it had confirmation from 10 countries namely Argentina, Bahrain, Canada, France, Iran, Norway, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland and Thailand.
As the number of cases in India soared to 1500, India on Friday confirmed its participation in the trial.
Meanwhile, the total number of cases across the globe had reached around 860,000 as of today. And more than 200,000 have recovered from COVID-19.
Sangay Chezom
