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\n \n\n \n2 July 2020
\n \n \n \nGhana cut malaria deaths by 65% from 2005 to 2015. In a paper published in the Malaria Journal, Rima Shretta estimates that the COVID-19 outbreak threatens this progress, as lockdowns limit access to health facilities and preventive malaria interventions have been interrupted. Ghana\u2019s transition to a lower middle income status results in lower donor support for malaria control, and the government must step up to avert a feared rise in cases.
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\n \n\n \n29 June 2020
\n \n \n \nThe RECOVERY trial was established in March as a randomised clinical trial to test a range of potential treatments for COVID-19, including lopinavir-ritonavir, an antiviral treatment commonly used to treat HIV. There was no significant difference in the primary endpoint of 28-day mortality, and the results were consistent in different subgroups of patients. There was also no evidence of beneficial effects on the risk of progression to mechanical ventilation or length of hospital stay. The trial Steering Committee concluded that there is no beneficial effect of lopinavir-ritonavir in patients hospitalised with COVID-19 and closed that treatment arm.
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\n \n\n \n22 June 2020
\n \n \n \nBlog by Piero Olliaro, Professor of Poverty-Related Infectious Diseases and ISARIC Director of Science, following the publication - and retraction - of scientific articles about the risks of treating COVID-19 with (hydroxy)chloroquine. This calls for the reflection on how decisions are made, how the underlying \u2018evidence\u2019 is generated and disseminated, and how exposed and vulnerable to manipulation the system we rely upon is.
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\n \n\n \n17 June 2020
\n \n \n \nThe Conversation article, by Lakshmi Manoharan, Medical Epidemiologist. Widespread protests have broken out across the US in response to the killings of black Americans at the hands of police. Demonstrations have also erupted in the UK and other countries in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and in protest at these countries\u2019 own domestic cases of institutional racism. These protests are happening in the middle of a pandemic, which raises issues regarding the spread of the virus, and also highlights deep inequalities due to structural racism and its effects on people\u2019s health. Although health authorities rightly discourage congregations of people, these protests may be the only way for the systemically disenfranchised to have their voices heard.
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\n \n\n \n16 June 2020
\n \n \n \nThe RECOVERY trial tests a range of potential treatments for COVID-19, including low-dose dexamethasone (a steroid treatment). Patients were randomised to receive dexamethasone 6 mg once per day for ten days and were compared with patients receiving usual care alone. Dexamethasone reduced deaths by one-third in ventilated patients and by one-fifth in other patients receiving oxygen only; there was no benefit among those patients who did not require respiratory support. Based on these results, 1 death would be prevented by treatment of around 8 ventilated patients or around 25 patients requiring oxygen alone.
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\n \n\n \n5 June 2020
\n \n \n \nA new statement has been released from Professor Peter Horby and Professor Martin Landray, Chief Investigators of the RECOVERY Trial. RECOVERY was established in March as a randomised clinical trial to test a range of potential drugs for COVID-19, including hydroxycholoroquine. The trial has proceeded at unprecedented speed, enrolling over 11,000 patients from 175 NHS hospitals in the UK. The chief investigators have concluded that there is no beneficial effect of hydroxychloroquine in patients hospitalised with COVID-19.
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\n \n\n \n20 May 2020
\n \n \n \nThe COVID-19 pandemic has seen some extraordinary medical feats and achievements, which are being rightly celebrated. Researchers at Oxford University have been at the forefront of global efforts, including the first human trials of a COVID-19 vaccine, and the world\u2019s biggest trial of potential COVID-19 treatments, RECOVERY.
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\n \n\n \n12 May 2020
\n \n \n \nThe COVID-19 International Modelling Consortium (CoMo Consortium) was created by researchers at the University of Oxford and Cornell University, is partnering with infectious disease modellers and public health experts from over 40 countries in Africa, Asia and America. The CoMo Consortium uses a participatory approach to provide decision-making support to policymakers, using evidence from epidemiological and economic models adapted to each country\u2019s context.
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\n \n\n \n5 May 2020
\n \n \n \nThe Global Health Network and the Family Larsson Rosenquist Foundation (FLRF) launch LactaHub: an open access knowledge platform featuring scientific and evidence-based information on breastfeeding and breastmilk for health professionals
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\n \n\n \n30 April 2020
\n \n \n \nThe results of a placebo-controlled randomised trial of remdesivir in COVID-19 patients have been published in the Lancet. Supported by the ISARIC Support Centre, scientists in China launched a trial of remdesivir in patients hospitalised with COVID-19. The results found no clinical benefit from use of the drug; however, while not statistically significant, the time to clinical improvement and duration of invasive mechanical ventilation were shorter in people treated with remdesivir.
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\n \n\n \n27 April 2020
\n \n \n \nThe International Severe Acute Respiratory and Emerging Infections Consortium (ISARIC) is producing a weekly report using clinical data from its COVID-19 database. To date, this includes data from 19,809 individuals from 244 sites across 25 countries.
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\n \n\n \n25 April 2020
\n \n \n \nBlog by Rima Shretta, Honorary Visiting Research Fellow. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues its path to LMICs, its impact is likely to be even more devastating, potentially reversing recent gains made in the management of other communicable diseases. Of particular concern is the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on malaria. COVID-19 has been slow to arrive and spread across Africa; nevertheless, there are many reasons to be concerned about malaria within the current context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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\n \n\n \n24 April 2020
\n \n \n \nA site team in Malawi used the WWARN Malaria Clinical Trials Toolkit for their antimalarial-antiretroviral drug-drug interaction trial with pregnant women. Clifford Banda and his staff used the CDISC-compliant WWARN REDCap data base template as the basis for their data collection and capture, and used or adapted the many WWARN standard operating procedures and their forms for various administrative, clinical, investigational product, quality, data management and safety aspects of their planned work.
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\n \n\n \n17 April 2020
\n \n \n \nThe UK government is funding 21 new novel coronavirus research studies, including a project led by Professor Trudie Lang. Research must be undertaken everywhere across the globe during this pandemic. Access and ability to undertake research should be equitable, and this research project, working through The Global Health Network, aims to support healthcare teams in low-resource settings. This is a University of Oxford led programme aiming to enable more and better research in diseases, communities and settings where evidence is lacking.
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\n \n\n \n10 April 2020
\n \n \n \nGlobal health experts have united in a call for governments and international organisations around the world to plan strategically for the coordinated production, equitable distribution and surveillance of COVID-19 medical products to ensure access to quality-assured medications for everyone.
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\n \n\n \n7 April 2020
\n \n \n \nBlog by Rima Shretta, Honorary Visiting Research Fellow. Rima outlines the direct and indirect costs of the COVID-19 pandemic which may impact the global economy.
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\n \n\n \n6 April 2020
\n \n \n \nThe world\u2019s largest randomised clinical trial of potential coronavirus treatments is well underway in the UK as part of the race to find a treatment. A number of promising treatments are being tested and, if the science supports it, will be given to NHS patients as quickly as possible. Definitive results on whether the treatments are safe and effective are expected within months and, if positive, they could potentially benefit hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. Almost 1,000 patients from 132 different hospitals have been recruited in just 15 days and thousands more are expected to join the Randomised Evaluation of COV-id19 thERapY (RECOVERY) trial in the coming weeks, making it the largest randomised controlled trial of potential COVID-19 treatments in the world.
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\n \n\n \n30 March 2020
\n \n \n \nThe problem of substandard and falsified (SF) medical products affects all countries but few regulatory authorities or pharmaceutical companies have policies of publicly releasing data. As a first step in tracking this global issue, IDDO\u2019s Medicine Quality Research Group, with the MORU Tropical Health Network and supported by a grant from the Wellcome Trust, has today launched a new, free-to-use, online tool, the Medicine Quality Monitoring Globe, (MQM Globe) which maps SF news reports worldwide in real time.
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\n \n\n \n23 March 2020
\n \n \n \nOxford Nuffield Department of Population Health started a new trial of potential treatments for adults patients hospitalised with confirmed COVID-19 with the collaboration of Professor Peter Horby
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\n \n\n \n13 March 2020
\n \n \n \nNDM is prioritising collaborative projects for front line actions to support global efforts in tackling nCoV. ISARIC has launched a number of international resources available free of charge, through which investigators retain full control of data and samples. Gavin Screaton and Guy Thwaites are looking at neutralising antibody responses. Other NDM researchers work on vaccine development, structure, protective immune response, UK hospital settings and pathogens evolution.
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