India will soon join the mega clinical trial on drugs by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
“We are likely to start our participation in the WHO’s solidarity trial soon. We could not do this earlier because of our numbers [lesser numbers of positive patients],” Dr Raman R. Gangakhedkar, head, epidemiology and communicable diseases, ICMR, said.
According to the WHO, the solidarity trial will test four different drugs or combinations--remdesivir, a combination of two drugs, lopinavir, ritonavir, the two drugs plus interferon beta, and chloroquine--and will compare their effectiveness to what is called standard of care—the regular support hospitals treating COVID-19 patients use now.
“A global data safety monitoring committee and steering committee (of international experts) will oversee the trial at WHO,” Dr Soumya Swaminathan, chief scientist, WHO, tweeted last week. “We are grateful to companies who have donated the drugs for the trial—Gilead, Merck, Cipla, Milan, Abbvie....with global solidarity, we can overcome this threat to humanity,” she said in the tweet.
Other countries who are participating in the trial include Thailand, Argentina, Bahrain, Canada, France, Iran, Norway, South Africa, Spain and Switzerland.
Having Indian patients in the trial would be significant since the efficacy and safety of the drugs would be relevant for the population, too.
The ICMR was also looking at conducting trials by repurposing existing drug molecules and studying its effects on the SARS-COV2 virus isolated at National Institute of Virology, Pune.
On India’s position on vaccine research, Gangakhedkar said that India had indicated its willingness to conduct vaccine trials of existing candidates—of the 30 groups working on the vaccine against COVID-19, five have gone to animal trials—if they clear animal models. This would help test its benefit for the Indian population, he said.
“We are also working on the Zika vaccine with Bharat Biotech. In the case of Nipah [the virus for both Zika and Nipah was also isolated at NIV], the vaccine will not offer any benefit and hence we have not gone ahead with it,” Gangakhedkar told THE WEEK.
