CV-19 therapeutic drug trials and Vaccine

[_Jersey Girl]

There are still trials running, but two new trials announced results in the last couple days — one on treatment of milder cases and one on prophylactic use. Both reported no effect. They appear to be high quality trials. As a practical matter, I think these studies, when combined with other evidence, reduces the odds the these drugs are safe and effective for COVID to something close to zero. If they were effective, we should have seen evidence by now.

Ok thanks for bringing me up to snuff on that.

[_Icarus]

Looks like a common steroid is effective in treating COVID patients. Could be a game changer.

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53061281

[_Chap]

Looks like a common steroid is effective in treating COVID patients. Could be a game changer.

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53061281

I think the phrase 'game changer' risks being over-used to the point of becoming meaningless.

Even with Dexamethasone the game is basically the same. It's just that this well-known and cheap steroid helps the doctors and nurses win a lot more often in severe cases.

In the trial, led by a team from Oxford University, around 2,000 hospital patients were given dexamethasone and were compared with more than 4,000 who did not receive the drug.

For patients on ventilators, it cut the risk of death from 40% to 28%. For patients needing oxygen, it cut the risk of death from 25% to 20%.

Chief investigator Prof Peter Horby said: "This is the only drug so far that has been shown to reduce mortality - and it reduces it significantly. It's a major breakthrough."

Lead researcher Prof Martin Landray says the findings suggest that for every eight patients treated on ventilators, you could save one life.

For those patients treated with oxygen, you save one life for approximately every 20-25 treated with the drug.

"There is a clear, clear benefit. The treatment is up to 10 days of dexamethasone and it costs about £5 per patient. So essentially it costs £35 to save a life. This is a drug that is globally available."

Prof Landray said, when appropriate, hospital patients should now be given it without delay, but people should not go out and buy it to take at home.

Dexamethasone does not appear to help people with milder symptoms of coronavirus - those who don't need help with their breathing.

The Recovery Trial has been running since March. It included the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine which has subsequently been ditched amid concerns that it increases fatalities and heart problems.

Another drug called remdesivir, an antiviral treatment that appears to shorten recovery time for people with coronavirus, is already being made available on the NHS.

[_Res Ipsa]

Looks like a common steroid is effective in treating COVID patients. Could be a game changer.

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53061281

Good sign, but I wouldn’t call it a game changer. Reducing deaths in patients who need oxygen or ventilation is good. But the notion that there is one thing lurking out there that will change everything, other than a safe and effective vaccine is likely to be wrong.

[_Res Ipsa]

Chap, I’m with you. I’d love to see the term “game changer” eliminated from the discussion. It sets up false expectations.

[_Icarus]

Well I did say "could be." But I figured that even if it saves just 1 in 8, that's still better than 0 in 8, which is where we were before.

[_Res Ipsa]

Also, yesterday the FDA withdrew its EUA for chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine. I think that's appropriate given the state of the evidence. Issuing was kind of an "own goal" for those who thought it had significant potential -- it discouraged people from being willing to participate in trials. If you think it works, why participate in a trial and risk getting assigned to the placebo group. The reason for the timing makes me a little suspicious. Later in the day the FDA issued a warning that chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine reduce the effectiveness of Remdesivir.

[_Jersey Girl]

Reporting in on my own trial using Losartan. If you recall, it's one of the front runners being trialed as a therapeutic for the virus. It is showing promise in thwarting the cytokine storm that plunges one into ARD (acute respirator distress) where folks end up on vents.

Three hours in. All I feel is a bit tired. Not fatigued. Not wiped out. Not exhausted like I felt on a beta blocker.

I feel like I could curl up under the covers and get a good night's sleep. Not morphine level warm fuzzy, but still a nice feeling.

That is all. And I read that this tiredness should pass after the first dose. We'll just see about that.

If some weird side effect comes up, will report it here. Doing this in case someone here or a loved one is confronted with the possibility of taking Losartan in case of Covid just wanting to share one person's account of what it's like.

Meant to follow up on this follow up. Felt sleepy the first two nights and occasionally earlier in the evenings, other than that, Losartan is fab. If anyone was advised to take this on account of COVID (preventing the cytokine storm thing), I'd definitely recommend considering it.

[_Jersey Girl]

Oh come on. I can't even with this any more.

Study finds hydroxychloroquine helped coronavirus patients survive better
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/02/health/h ... index.html

[_Jersey Girl]

Hope...

Moderna coronavirus vaccine shows 'promising' safety and immune response results in published Phase 1 study, but more research is needed


(CNN)A Covid-19 vaccine developed by the biotechnology company Moderna in partnership with the National Institutes of Health has been found to induce immune responses in all of the volunteers who received it in a Phase 1 study.

These early results, published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Tuesday, showed that the vaccine worked to trigger an immune response with mild side effects -- fatigue, chills, headache, muscle pain, pain at the injection site -- becoming the first US vaccine candidate to publish results in a peer-reviewed medical journal
The vaccine is expected to begin later this month a large Phase 3 trial -- the final trial stage before regulators consider whether to make the vaccine available.

Full Article: https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/14/health/m ... index.html

Locally...

Moderna coronavirus vaccine trial set to launch at UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital

UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital will soon enroll patients in the first large-scale U.S. clinical trial of a coronavirus vaccine.

The phase 3 study of Moderna’s experimental vaccine will include 1,000 people at University of Colorado Hospital on the Anschutz Medical Campus. In addition, another 30,000 patients nationwide will participate in the trial, which is slated to start this summer, says Dr. Thomas Campbell, a University of Colorado School of Medicine and UCHealth virologist and infectious-disease specialist.

Full Article: https://www.uchealth.org/today/moderna- ... -hospital/