Life-saving virus drugs could be here next month
LiFeSAVinG coronavirus drugs could be ready as soon as next month, scientists have revealed. more than 10,500 nHS patients have been treated with experimental virus drugs as part of the world’s largest Covid-19 trial.
Deputy chief investigator of the study, Professor martin Landray of Oxford University, said the first results are expected in late June. if the drugs make even a minor difference to patients’ survival chances, they will be immediately rolled out on the nHS.
And because the five drugs in the trial are already licensed for other uses, they are all readily available.
‘the aim is that the result gets announced and changes practice,’ Professor Landray said. ‘Because of the types of drugs we’ve chosen, they should be used straight away.’
the study, which is still seeing 100 new patients enrolled every day, is being run in 170 nHS hospitals across the UK.
the oldest patient so far treated has been 109 years old – and the youngest a baby of just one year.
Patients are randomly given one of five drugs – antimalarial hydroxychloroquine, antibiotic azithromycin, steroid dexamethasone, HiV antiretroviral lopinavir- ritonavir, and an anti- inflammatory called tocilizumab.
One in every six patients in the study are given ‘placebo’ dummy treatment.
the researchers are adding further drugs to the study and have recently started using convalescent plasma – antibody-rich blood collected from donors who have recovered from Covid-19.
Professor Landray said the researchers will not know until the results are ‘unblinded’ next month which of the drugs is the best bet for a treatment. But even a moderate impact would make a major difference.
He said: ‘We’re heading in at, sadly, around 40,000 deaths in the UK. if we could reduce that by one-fifth, then that would be 8,000 lives saved.
‘there’s not likely to be any single one big winner but it’s much more likely that several drugs may have what we might think of as modest effects. if we found several drugs that each reduced the risk by one fifth, then quickly we’d be reducing the risk of dying by say a half or more.’
Professor Peter Horby, who is leading the trial and also serves on Sage – the Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for emergencies – said drugs are vital because Covid19 will probably be with us ‘forever’. He added: ‘even if we get an effective vaccine, i think it will be impossible to eradicate this virus.’
meanwhile another study is recruiting frontline UK health workers for a global clinical trial to test if two antimalarial drugs – one used by Donald trump – can prevent the virus.
Chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine or a placebo will be given to more than 40,000 healthcare workers from europe, Africa, Asia and South America.
the first UK participants were enrolled yesterday at hospitals in Brighton and Oxford.