9 hospitals to conduct clinical TRIALS TO find COVID TREATMENT

Selected hospitals include AIIMS in Jodhpur, Apollo Hospital in Chennai, BJ Medical College & Civil Hospital Ahmadabad, & Chirayu Medical College & Hospital in Bhopal

NEW DELHI: In a major development, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has approved the proposals of nine hospitals to conduct randomised controlled clinical trials under the WHO'S solidarity trial to find an effective treatment for the Coronavirus disease.

According to a senior ICMR official, four treatment protocols — Remdesivir, a combination of Lopinavir and Ritonavir, Hydroxychloroquine, and Lopinavir and Ritonavir with Interferon beta-1a — will be evaluated during the clinical trials across the selected hospitals. The hospitals selected for conducting the trails include AIIMS in Jodhpur, Apollo Hospital in Chennai, Ahmadabadbased BJ Medical College and Civil Hospital, and the Chirayu Medical College and Hospital in Bhopal.

“The required regulatory and ethical approvals have already been obtained and the trial has begun with recruiting COVID-19 patients in the country. Till now, nine hospitals have been approved. The plan is to enroll at least 20 to 30 clinical sites across India,” said Dr Sheela Godbole, head of the Epidemiology Division at the Icmr-national AIDS Research Institute.

Godbole is also the national coordinator for the World Health Organization's solidarity trial in India.

'Solidarity is an international clinical trial to compare four treatment options against standard of care to assess their relative effectiveness against the Coronavirus.

“By enrolling patients in multiple countries, the solidarity trial aims to rapidly discover whether any of the drugs slow the disease's progression or improve survival. Importantly,

this initiative provides for both speed and scale,” the ICMR official said.

On the development, ICMR'S DG Dr Balram Bhargava said “The decision to join the WHO solidarity trial is an important step in this endeavour. The Icmr-national AIDS Research Institute is the national coordination site for the trial in India. Four potential anti-viral agents, Remdesivir, Chloroquine/hydroxychloroquine, Lopinavir-ritonavir and Lopinavir-ritonavir with Interferon (beta-1a) are to be evaluated in the trial.”

“We want as many patients to be quickly enrolled in the randomised controlled clinical trial so that results also can come out as soon as possible,” he said, adding that the sample size has to be at least 1,500 in total from all clinical sites.

Hailing India's participation in the WHO global trial, WHO'S representative to India Dr Henk Bekedam said, “We congratulate the government of India, particularly the ICMR, for joining the global solidarity trial.”