WHO expects first results from COVID drug trials within two weeks

The World Health Organization would soon get results from its clinical trials it is conducting of drugs that might be effective in treating COVID-19 patients.

WHO’s Director General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, hinted this new development on Friday 3 July, 2020 at a news conference organised by Geneva Association of United Nations Correspondents (ACANU) amid the COVID-19, caused by the novel coronavirus at the WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.

“Nearly 5,500 patients in 39 countries have so far been recruited into the Solidarity trial,” he said in response to clinical studies the UN is conducting.

“We expect interim results within the next two weeks,” he added.

The Solidarity Trial started out in five parts looking at possible treatment approaches to COVID-19.

These five parts include standard care, remdesivir, hydroxychloroquine anti-malarial drug touted by US President Donald Trump, lopinavir HIV drugs, and lopinavir combined with interferon.

Latest result of the studies indicated that the arm testing hydroxychloroquine shows no benefit in coronavirus infected persons while it is expected that more work will be done to see the efficacy of the drug as a preventive medicine.

Mike Ryan, head of the Who’s emergencies programme, said it would be unwise to predict when a vaccine will be ready against COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus that has killed more than half a million people.

Ryan expressed concern about the time of mass production of vaccine, even if a vaccine candidate shows its effectiveness by year’s end.

He also advised that countries could help break the transmission chain by identifying new clusters of cases, tracking down infected people and isolating them.

There is yet to be a proven vaccine for the disease now, while 18 potential candidates are being tested on humans.

So far, the world has recorded 11,122,321 cases and 526,994 deaths with 6,228,060 recoveries.