A Phase III Trial to Promote Recovery From Covid 19 With Combined Doxycycline and Ivermectin Along Standard Care

Detailed Summary

On 31 December 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) was formally notified about a cluster of cases of pneumonia in Wuhan City, China. On 7 January the responsible virus was isolated and its genome sequence was shared on 12 January. It was named as COVID-19, a novel Coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. It is a member of the Corona virus family which is RNA enveloped viruses. Very rapidly the virus emerged as pandemic. Now it is dominating the lives of every people of this universe. Management of the COVID-19 relies on mainly supportive care and oxygen supplementation via non-invasive or mechanical ventilation in critical cases. Patients who are critically ill may also require vasopressor support and antibiotics for secondary bacterial infections. There is no vaccine or highly effective antiviral drugs for COVID-19. Currently there is a tremendous effort around the world to develop effective preventive and therapeutic treatment for this disease. World Health Organization has launched a non-blinded clinical trial (SOLIDARITY) to evaluate four candidate treatments (remdesivir, lopinavir/ritonavir, lopinavir/ritonavir/ interferon beta-1a, and chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine) versus standard of care in 18 countries worldwide. RECOVERY trial one of the largest trials to see the efficacy and safety of hydroxychloroquine revealed that they are no clear cut clinical benefit for COVID-19. Other drugs in the SOLIDARTY trial are quite expansive for resource limited countries like Bangladesh. Study Published in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine advocates further research into Ivermectin for COVID-19 Treatment. The spotlight on Ivermectin was brought by Australian researchers from Monash University who demonstrated its efficacy against the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus in vitro studies. In different study Doxycycline also showed promising results in treatment of COVID 19 infection. It is highly lipophilic antibiotics that are known to chelate zinc component of matrix metalloprotienases (MMP). Corona viruses are known to rely heavily of MMPs for survival, cell infiltration and replication. It also has an anti-inflammatory effect which might be effective in combating cytokine storm of Covid-19 infection. So it have been planned to conduct an experimental clinical trial using combination of ivermectin and doxycycline for treatment of COVID 19 along with the other standard care.

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