Describing time on a drug trial

ONE of the first Covid-19 patients to take part in trials for possible treatments says there is still no way of knowing if her recovery was aided by the drug she was given.

Claire Fuller, 56, was treated with the antimalaria drug hydroxychloroquine after she was taken into Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital (RD&E) at the end of March.

Hydroxychloroquine has been hailed as a possible breakthrough in the fight against coronavirus by US President Donald Trump, and is one of a series of existing drugs which are being tested across the UK in the fastest growing trial in UK medical history.

Ms Fuller was taken into RD&E on March 31, when her breathing deteriorated 10 days after developing a dry cough.

The mother of two grown-up children, from Tiverton, Devon, said: “They asked me if I’d take part in the study when I was still in A&E.

“It didn’t take long for me to agree. The more people they get, the better.”

She said that she has no idea whether some of the symptoms she experienced, and her recovery, were due to the infection or were side-effects of the drug.

She said: “I was getting what was like a flushing feeling – a hot, sharp, tingling going through my lungs. I don’t know whether this was me responding to the drug or the virus.

“Until they get more people through the trial they will not know. That’s the point of the study.”

Ms Fuller said the doctors, like their patients, are not sure which presentations are down to the virus or the drugs.

“They’ll only know that when more and more people take part,” she said.

Ms Fuller, who works as a global manager for a veterinary company, is now recovering at home after she was discharged a week ago.

She says she simply does not know if her recovery was aided or hastened by the hydroxychloroquine, but encouraged anyone who has the chance to sign up for the trial.

Recovery, which is being co-ordinated at Oxford University, signed up 1,000 patients from 132 different hospitals in its first 15 days and, according to reports, now has almost 3,000 volunteers.

Recovery is trialling three other drugs as well as hydroxychloroquine.

These are lopinavir-ritonavir, which is normally used to treat HIV; the steroid dexamethasone, which is used in a wide range of conditions to reduce inflammation; and the commonly-used antibiotic azithromycin.