Europe has begun clinical trials of experimental drugs to treat COVID-19 in thousands of patients including a much talked about antimalarial drug, reports Euronews.
The trials will include 3,200 patients in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, the United Kingdom, France, and Spain. There will be 800 patients in France, where clinical trials were launched this past weekend.
The drug trials include antiviral drugs Remdesivir (used to treat Ebola), Lopinavir/Ritonavir (used to treat HIV/AIDS) and hydroxychloroquine (used to treat malaria).
“The list of these potential drugs is also based on the list of experimental treatments classified as priority by the World Health Organization,” said infectious diseases specialist Florence Ader at infectious and tropical diseases department of Lyon’s Croix-Rousse hospital.
Ader is leading the French portion of the trials which she says will be flexible meaning that “ineffective experimental treatments can be abandoned and replaced by [others] that emerge from research.”
The clinical drugs include a test of hydroxychloroquine, a drug that has been talked up by several media organisations for its potential effectiveness in treating COVID-19.
It's a less toxic version of an antimalarial drug chloroquine which has been around since the 1940s.
“I have authorised several clinical trials in France including a test of choloroquine for hundreds of sick patients who are hospitalised. I will communicate any positive or negative result,” said France’s health minister Olivier Véran over the weekend.