WHO asks UWI to take part in covid19 drug trials

UWI has been approached by the World Health Organization (WHO) to do "solidarity trials" as part of its contribution to the regional effort to deal with the covid19 pandemic.

The protocols of these studies are being reviewed by the ethics committees of UWI and the Ministry of Health, which will decide if the studies will be done

Dean of the Faculty of Medical Sciences Prof Terrence Seemungal said the trials will take place at the university’s campuses in TT, Jamaica, Barbados and the Bahamas.

The trials will compare four drug treatment options against the standard care in each country to determine their effectiveness against the virus.

The drugs to be tested are remdesivir, lopinavir, ritonavir, interferon beta, and hydroxychloroquine.

Seemungal said people who volunteer to participate in the study will have to sign a consent form and will not have the option to decide which treatment they are given, as these will be chosen randomly by the WHO.

He said the standard care is what is offered in hospitals in the territories where the trials are taking place. He said this usually included antibiotics if someone presents with pneumonia, as well as drugs to treat fever and other symptoms.

He said it was important that these trials take place in the Caribbean because it offered a chance to take part in an international approach to treatment.

“It is important to note that many times when drugs are used throughout the world, they are based on studies that are not done on our patients. We don’t know how our patients would react to these drugs. We assume it’s the same as the North Americans and Europe, which is where a lot of studies are done.”

Also speaking at Thursday’s media briefing was professor of molecular genetics and virology Dr Chrisitne Carrington, who updated the public on what the medical profession knows about the covid19 virus. She said studies have shown that without interventions such as social distancing, handwashing, wearing of masks, one infected person will infect two to three people.

This figure is called the basic reproductive number.

She said the purpose of interventions was to reduce this number to less than one, meaning that the number of infections is decreasing.

Contrary to information on social media, she said, there was no scientific data to show that the different strains of the covid19 virus differed in infectivity or severity. She said unlike other respiratory viruses like influenza, the virus has shown a low rate of mutation.

Carrington said while young people and children are less likely to experience severe manifestations of covid19, they experience a similar viral load to adults and can therefore spread the virus as quickly as adults.

She supported calls for the elderly to get their annual flu shots, so they are not facing the threat of fighting two viruses, and urged elderly care homes to adhere to the infection-prevention control measures recommended by the government.

She said parents should ensure children continue to get their vaccines so that other diseases are not reintroduced into the population.