Collaborate with ANTICOV study to treat COVID-19 in Africa
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Outstanding statements on the ANTICOV study:
Dr John Nkengasong, Director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention: ‘There is a need for large clinical trials in Africa for COVID-19 to answer research questions that are specific to an African context’.
Dr Borna Nyaoke-Anoke, Senior Clinical Project Manager at DNDi: ‘It is heartening to see so many African countries collaborate to get much-needed answers about our unique COVID-19 patient needs’.
Dr Nathalie Strub-Wourgaft, Director of COVID-19 Response for DNDi and PI of the study: ‘The ANTICOV consortium is a broad partnership bringing African scientific leaders and global R&D organizations together to respond to an urgent unmet medical need. Collaboration is the only way to provide robust scientific responses to these research questions’.
Description of the Study:
- Title: An open-label, multi-centre, randomized, adaptive platform trial of the safety and efficacy of several therapies, including antiviral therapies, versus control in mild/moderate cases of COVID-19.
- Principal Investigator: Dr Nathalie Strub-Wourgaft.
- Countries of Implementation: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Mali, Mozambique, Sudan, and Uganda.
- Study Population: Up to 3000 adults over 18 years with mild or moderate COVID-19.
- Study Type: Interventional clinical trial of treatment, in phase III.
- Design: At first, the trial will begin testing, against a control arm, the HIV antiretroviral combination lopinavir/ritonavir and the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, which remains the standard of care for COVID-19 today in numerous African countries. Subsequently, new treatments as medicines currently used to treat malaria, HIV, hepatitis C, parasitic infections, and certain cancers, will be added to the trial as evidence of their potential for mild-to-moderate cases emerges.
- Methods: Antimalarials and antivirals treatments.
Objectives of the Study:
Principal Objective: The primary objective is to compare the efficacy of alternative treatment strategies versus control on the risk of progression to severe respiratory disease.
Secondary Objectives:
(1) To identify treatments that could be used to treat mild and moderate cases of COVID-19, to stop the disease from getting more serious.
(2) To find a treatment to help avoid mass hospitalizations in African health systems with limited intensive care facilities.
More about this Study:
The ANTICOV clinical trial aims to respond to the urgent need to identify treatments that can be used to treat mild and moderate cases of COVID-19 early and prevent spikes in hospitalizations that could overwhelm fragile and already overburdened health systems in Africa.
This COVID-19 study will be carried out at 19 sites in 13 countries by the ANTICOV consortium, which includes 26 prominent African and global research and development (R&D) organizations, coordinated by DNDi.
Major funding for the ANTICOV consortium is provided by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) through KfW banking group and by the global health agency Unitaid as part of ACT-A. Early support to launch the initiative was provided by the European & Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP), under its second programme supported by the European Union with additional funding from the Swedish government, and the Starr International Foundation, Switzerland.