©
Asim Beg
"As of COB 29 July, COPCOV has now recruited 1637 participants -- making it the largest pre-exposure prophylaxis study in the world! There is still a way to go, as there remains so much potential in this study, but this is a fantastic milestone. Congratulations, everyone!" said COPCOV Co-PI Dr Will Schilling.
Funded by Wellcome and led by MORU, COPCOV is currently recruiting in Indonesia, Kenya, Zambia, Benin, Côte d’Ivoire and Mali. The global study hopes to open in the coming weeks new study sites in Benin, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Kenya, Nepal and Niger.
Recruitment into the COPCOV study at Aga Khan University slowed earlier in the year due to high COVID-19 vaccination coverage among healthcare worker staff. Following a change in recruitment strategy, the team pivoted to a community-based approach. Although this new approach presented many challenges, a tremendous effort from all those involved led, in less than six weeks, to 381 participants being recruited into COPCOV. This brought the total number of participants recruited at the site to 399 and marks a COPCOV milestone as Aga Khan becomes the first site to hit their recruitment target (400 could not be achieved due one study drug kit being damaged).
A huge congratulation to Professor M. Asim Beg (4th from left) and his team (shown celebrating their achievement 20 July) on this truly fantastic effort.
- James Callery, on behalf of the COPCOV team, with thanks to Asim Beg for photo.