GlOBAl TrIAl OF ANTI-MAlArIA DrUG TAKEN By TrUMP BEGINS

LONDON — Healthcare workers in Britain and Thailand have started taking part in a trial to determine whether two anti-malarial drugs can prevent Covid-19, including one that US President Donald Trump says he has been taking.

The study, involving more than 40,000 healthcare workers across Europe, Africa, Asia and South America, seeks to determine whether chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine could play a role in the fight against the novel coronavirus.

The lead investigators in Thailand and Britain said their ‘COPCOV’ trial, in the works for several months, would cut through the heated and unhelpful debate.

“We still do not know whether anything is beneficial in Covid-19,” the University of Oxford’s Professor Nicholas White, the study’s co-principal investigator, said. —