Aga Khan University enrols first COPCOV Pakistan participant

18 November 2020

On 17 Nov, the Pakistan arm of COPCOV enrolled its first participant at Aga Khan University (AKU), Karachi, as COPCOV Pakistan PI Prof. M. Asim Beg looked on. Prof. Beg will be supported by AKU’s Drs Farah Qamar, Faisal Mahmood, Noshin Nasir, Momin Qazi, Sonia Qureshi and Najia Ghanchi as well as Prof. Saeed Hamid, director of AKU’s Clinical Trials Unit.

Pakistan Principal Investigator Prof. M. Asim Beg and two colleagues in a hospital setting.

Pakistan joins Thailand and COPCOV UK sites in participating in COPCOV, the MORU-led, Oxford-supported global study to test if hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine can prevent COVID-19 in healthcare workers. AKU expects to enrol 400 participants, with new COPCOV sites in Indonesia and Kenya expected to begin enrolment in late Nov-early Dec.

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Hydroxychloroquine doses in COVID-19 prevention trials should be safe, study finds. Now let’s find out if they’re effective.

10 September 2020

As the world waits impatiently for a COVID-19 vaccine, an exhaustive review of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine pharmacology suggests that the doses used in COVID-19 prevention trials are safe, say University of Oxford affiliated researchers in a study published in PLoS Medicine.

Hydroxychloroquine is being discarded prematurely in COVID-19 prevention

6 August 2020

Hydroxychloroquine could still prevent COVID-19 and save tens of thousands of lives around the world, say leading scientific researchers. While it doesn’t work in treatment of hospitalised patients, it could still prevent infections. However, fraudulent data, unjustified extrapolation and exaggerated safety concerns together with intense politicisation and negative publicity may stop COPCOV, the only large, global clinical trial testing hydroxychloroquine in COVID-19 prevention, from ever finding out.

UK regulator gives green light to clinical trial of hydroxychloroquine to prevent Covid-19 in healthcare workers

29 June 2020

The UK regulator MHRA announced on 26 June that it would again permit recruitment to the COPCOV COVID-19 prevention clinical trial. The MHRA decision came 5 weeks after it reacted immediately to the now-discredited paper published in The Lancet suggesting harms with hydroxychloroquine, and paused recruitment of UK participants. But The Lancet paper was based on fabricated data and was swiftly retracted. After this interruption, recruitment around the globe to COPCOV can now resume.

COVID-19 prevention and treatment: a critical analysis of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine clinical pharmacology

20 June 2020

Paper by NJ White et al, PLoS Medicine, in press. Using available pharmacokinetic information from healthy volunteers, the treatment of malaria, the chronic treatment of rheumatological conditions and the toxicokinetics of chloroquine in self-poisoning, the authors predict exposures and safety margins in the high dose chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine COVID-19 prevention and treatment regimens currently under evaluation. These regimens are predicted to have reasonable safety margins. Large, well conducted randomised clinical trials with appropriate monitoring are required to determine if chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine have preventive or treatment efficacy in COVID-19 and acceptable safety. Current recommendations for their use outside of clinical trials are not justified at this time.

Major medical journals retract Covid-19 studies

9 June 2020

On 4 June 2020, after a week of increasing scientific concern and scrutiny, first The Lancet, then the New England Journal of Medicine, retracted studies that were based on inaccessible data. The studies have been extremely damaging to chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine COVID-19 clinical trials around the globe. MORU researchers played a key role in bringing this scandal to light, whose consequences continue to play out.

Clinical trials on hydroxychloroquine/ chloroquine in COVID-19. Statement in response to damaging recent events

5 June 2020

On 4 June 2020, after a week of increasing scientific concern and scrutiny, first The Lancet, then a little over an hour later the New England Journal of Medicine, retracted studies that were based on inaccessible data, provided by the Surgisphere corporation. The studies have been extremely damaging to chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine COVID-19 clinical trials around the globe. Here is MORU’s statement in response to these events.