Five hospitals from India have been approved to conduct randomized controlled clinical trials under the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Solidarity Trial to find an effective treatment for COVID-19.
As per reports, two hospitals from Ahmedabad and one each from Chennai, Bhopal and Jodhpur have so far been approved for conducting clinical trials.
These hospitals will be conducting clinical trials on four treatment protocols -remdesivir, a combination of lopinavir and ritonavir, hydroxychloroquine and lopinavir and ritonavir with Interferon beta-1a.
Sheela Godbole, national coordinator of the WHO-India Solidarity Trial and head of the Division of Epidemiology at ICMR-National AIDS Research Institute said that the clinical trials would be halted if any of the patients show any adverse effects.
For a health facility to conduct a clinical trial, it needs to get regulatory approval from the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) and have to be registered on the Clinical Trial Registry of India (CTRI).
Godbole also said that four among the five hospitals have already begun conducting the clinical trials.
She also said that 1500 patients needed to be enrolled for the clinical trials so that its results can be studied more accurately.
WHO ‘s Solidarity Trial aims to rapidly discover whether any of the drugs slow disease progression or improve survival of coronavirus patients.
