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 The 'COPCOV' study will involve more than 40,000 frontline
healthcare workers from Europe, Africa, Asia and South America to
determine if chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine are effective in
preventing the novel coronavirus.
Demand for hydroxychloroquine surged after Trump touted it in early
April. Earlier this week the U.S. leader said he was now taking the
drug as a preventive medicine against the virus despite medical
warnings about its use.
The trial, led by the University of Oxford with the support of the
Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit (MORU) in Bangkok,
will open to British participants at hospital sites in Brighton and
Oxford on Thursday and involve those who are in close contact with
patients with proven or suspected COVID-19.
"We really do not know if chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine are
beneficial or harmful against COVID-19," said the University of
Oxford's Professor Nicholas White, the study's co-principal
investigator, who is based at MORU.
"The best way to find out if they are effective in preventing
COVID-19 is in a randomised clinical trial."
The COPCOV team said laboratory evidence showed the anti-malarial
drugs might be effective in preventing or treating COVID-19 but
there was no conclusive proof.
U.S. regulators have authorized the emergency use of
hydroxlychloroquine for coronavirus patients but the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration has warned against the use of it in COVID-19
patients outside of the hospital or clinical trials due to the risk
of serious heart rhythm problems.
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"These trials will give us the best understanding of how safe and
effective these drugs might be across different populations and age
groups," said Nick Cammack, COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator Lead
at the Wellcome Trust, a UK-based medical research charity which is
helping to fund the trial.
"If, and only if, they are effective, these drugs can be scaled up and rolled
out quickly across the world."
In Britain, Europe and Africa participants will receive either
hydroxychloroquine or a placebo for three months. In Asia they will receive
either chloroquine or a placebo.
A total of 25 study sites are expected to be open in the UK by the end of June,
MORU said, with plans for further sites in Thailand and Southeast Asia, Italy,
Portugal, Africa and South America. The results are expected by the end of this
year.
"We are looking at this with great care and examining all of the evidence that
is out there," Britain's security minister James Brokenshire told Sky News.
(editing by Michael Holden)
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