London - British healthcare workers will
on Thursday begin taking part in a University of Oxford-led
international trial of two anti-malarial drugs to see if they
can prevent Covid-19, including one US President Donald Trump
says he has been taking.
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.
The drugs have risen to prominence since Trump said earlier
this week he was taking hydroxychloroquine 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,"
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.
Twenty-five 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.