The world’s biggest trial of drugs to treat Coronavirus patients has begun in the United Kingdom at unprecedented speed, and hopes to have some answers within weeks.
The Recovery trial has recruited more than 5,000 patients in 165 NHS hospitals around the UK in a month, ahead of similar trials in the US and Europe, which have a few hundred.
“This is by far the largest trial in the world,” said Peter Horby, professor of emerging infectious diseases and global health at Oxford University, who is leading it.
He has previously led Ebola drug trials in west Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
The Recovery team expects to be the first to have definitive data. “We’re guessing some time in June we may get the results,” said Horby.
“If it is really clear that there are benefits, an answer will be available quicker.” But he warned that in the case of Covid-19, there would be no “magic bullet”.
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