Large clinical trial to study repurposed drugs to treat COVID-19 symptoms
Using an ACTIV master protocol, the trial will focus on potential interventions for mild-to-moderate illness.
April 19, 2021
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“Assessing medicines to self-treat COVID
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) will fund a phase 3 trial called ACTIV-6 that will test several existing prescription and over-the-counter medications for people to self-administer to treat symptoms of COVID-19, the NIH said in a
press release yesterday.
Though several treatments for moderate to severe COVID-19 have been approved, there are currently no at-home recommended treatment for mild cases of the virus.
"While we're doing a good job with treating hospitalized patients with severe disease, we don't currently have an approved medication that can be self-administered to ease symptoms of people suffering from mild disease at home, and reduce the chance of their needing hospitalization," said NIH Director Francis Collins, MD, PhD.
"ACTIV-6 will evaluate whether certain drugs showing promise in small trials can pass the rigor of a larger trial."
CIDRAP:
Pennsylvania, New Jersey emerge as COVID-19 hot spots
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India:
India COVID cases surge, hospitals run out of oxygen, beds
India COVID ‘storm’ hits new records as oxygen supplies run short
“India’s COVID-19 outbreak has set new records with 2,023 deaths in 24 hours – the highest single-day tally for the country so far – as hospitals run perilously low on oxygen amid rising demand for beds.”
India's hospitals run out of beds and oxygen in devastating second Covid-19 wave - CNN
Indian capital running out of medical oxygen as pandemic surges | Reuters
India's COVID tsunami leaves bodies piling up as oxygen, medicines, vaccines and hospital beds run short
PM Praises Tata Group's "Compassionate Gesture" To Ease Oxygen Crisis
COVID-19: Bombay Oxygen shares up 256%; it doesn't even make oxygen
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Michigan:
Sparrow hospital is at capacity as pandemic rages in Michigan
“Michigan has the worst COVID-19 rate in the country in the last seven days, according to the
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Almost 50,000 people have tested positive in the last week.”
What’s Causing Michigan’s COVID Surge, and Who’s Getting Sick?
“
Are the kinds of patients you are seeing now similar to those you treated in previous waves of the pandemic?
What is different about this time, compared with previous times, is that it is a lot of young people—because the first people that got vaccinated were people over the age of 75, health care workers [and later] people over the age of 65. There’s this gap that’s going on right now where there’s a huge portion of the population that’s not vaccinated, and they range in age from children through people in their 50s and 60s. We were getting calls about people in their 30s, in their 40s, in their 50s who had COVID, all of a sudden, really badly.””
[...]
“
In these younger patients that you’re seeing, does their disease look like the older patients you had before, or do they present differently?
I don’t think it’s different. What gets you to an ICU is illness severe enough to cause [ARDS]. And often there’s a superimposed bacterial pneumonia on top of COVID. What I think gets you to an ICU, or at least to this level of care where it’s so severe that you need to be intubated, is: you often have a coexisting illness. Even people in their 30s who are otherwise “healthy,” a lot of them have obesity or hypertension—all the sorts of comorbidities that have been associated with severe illness.”
Expert who spoke to Whitmer: Michigan losing race to COVID-19
“"As a matter of disease mitigation, there's no question" shutting down activities like dining inside restaurants, youth sports and moving high schools to virtual learning would be effective in slowing transmission in the state, said
Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, associate dean for public health practice and training at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
"It should be very seriously considered," he said. "Stronger action should be seriously considered, but I also at the same time understand that she’s using her judgment about what people will accept."”
Michigan reports 43 new school-related COVID-19 outbreaks
3 who died after vaccine were infected before injections, Michigan officials say
“All three of the potential breakthrough cases had a prior positive PCR test for COVID-19, but met the definition of a "breakthrough" case because they'd tested positive more than 45 days before the onset of symptoms, said Chelsea Wuth, a spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.
"It is likely that these three cases were examples of prolonged viral shedding of SARS-CoV-2 virus rather than reinfections with COVID-19," Wuth said in a Sunday email to The Detroit News.”
