The World Health Organisation, WHO, confirms commencement of the solidarity trial for a drug to treat COVID-19 in Nigeria.
A joint national briefing took place on Friday where Fiona Braka (officer in charge of WHO in Nigeria) addressed the presidential task force (PTF) on COVID-19, saying that the trials were still at an early stage. Braka said the process has commenced in some states in the country, and is yet to start in other states.
“This is a large multi-country effort that is going on globally. And we are picking up that trial in Nigeria; some states have started, some are yet to start,” she said.
She also revealed that more than 100 countries have joined in the solidarity clinical trial, which was launched by WHO and some partners, to help find an effective treatment for the pandemic.
“We have a total of 89 vaccines that are in development globally, including seven in clinical evaluation and several therapeutics are in clinical trials,” she said.
Braka said WHO is committed to ensuring equal sharing of medicines and vaccines that will be developed, with all countries and people – “We do have the solidarity trial, which is an international clinical trial to help find an effective treatment for COVID-19, launched by the WHO and partners”.
“More than 100 countries have joined the solidarity trial and to date, over 1,200 patients have been randomised from the first five countries to evaluate the safety and efficacy of full drug and drug combinations.”
It was reported that the solidarity trial, announced on March 18 by WHO Director-General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, aims to compare the effectiveness of four drugs and drug combinations in treating COVID-19.
WHO hopes to compare many studies that adhere to the same protocol to obtain strong results.
It was reported that sometime in April, Nigeria expressed interest to be part of the global solidarity drug trial to combat this pandemic-causing disease which has infected close to 6,000 people in the country and 4.8 million globally.
She also said that “the whole idea is that the large pool of information across the countries will be systematically analysed at global level in addition to what is coming from other countries; carefully analysed and guidance provide to countries on which formulation is more effective.”
The WHO official said that the drugs for the trial were already manufactured, not new.
“They are simply being repurposed for the intention of determining their effects on the COVID virus,” she said.
“We will continue to keep you updated on what the timeline will look like but we are still quite early in the process in the collection of data.”
(By Miss Bimbo)
Photo Credit: xtalks
