WHO welcomes India’s recent proposal to the WTO to waive patents on medical products for COVID-19
Geneva: After the Solidarity Therapeutics Trial findings that remdesivir and interferon have little or no effect in preventing death from COVID-19 or reducing time in hospital, the corticosteroid dexamethasone remains the only therapeutic shown to be effective against COVID-19, for patients with severe disease.
“In June, we announced that we were discontinuing the hydroxychloroquine arm of the study, and in July we announced that we would no longer enrol patients to receive the combination of lopinavir and ritonavir. Interim results from the trial now show that the other two drugs in the trial, remdesivir and interferon, have little or no effect in preventing death from COVID-19 or reducing time in hospital,” World Health Organisation Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, told media persons here today.
Also read: Study shows drugs used for the treatment have little or no effect on hospitalized COVID-19 patients
The WHO Director-General informed that the Solidarity Trial was still recruiting about 2000 patients every month and will assess other treatments, including monoclonal antibodies and new antivirals. “There are still many other ongoing trials of therapeutics identified through the Research and Development Roadmap for COVID-19,” he said.
Against the backdrop of a temporary setback to vaccine trials, Dr. Ghebreyesus reassured that through the ACT Accelerator, WHO remained totally committed to speeding up the development of vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics for COVID-19, and to ensuring their equitable distribution, and welcomed South Africa’s and India’s recent proposal to the World Trade Organization to waive patents on medical products for COVID-19 until the end of the pandemic in an effort to expand access to COVID-19 tests, treatments and vaccines.
It may be mentioned that only this week, Johnson & Johnson had temporarily paused all dosing in their Janssen COVID-19 vaccine candidate clinical trials including the Phase 3 ENSEMBLE trial, due to “an unexplained illness” in a study participant. Following their guidelines, the participant’s illness is being reviewed and evaluated by the ENSEMBLE independent Data Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) as well as their internal clinical and safety physicians.
In the meantime, the WHO has also expressed concerns over the rising cases of COVID-19 especially in Europe. Last week, the number of cases reported in Europe was almost three times higher than during the first peak in March although the number of deaths reported was much lower than in March. However, hospitalizations are increasing and many cities are reporting they will reach their intensive care bed capacity in the coming weeks.
“Every hospital bed occupied by a patient with COVID-19 is a bed that is unavailable for someone else with another condition or disease, such as influenza,” Dr. Ghebreyesus said, adding that the co-circulation of influenza and COVID-19 might present challenges for health systems and health facilities, since both diseases present with many similar symptoms.
“For that reason, WHO is working with countries to take a holistic approach to the preparedness, prevention, control and treatment of all respiratory diseases, including influenza and COVID-19,” he said, taking note of the apprehensions that demand for influenza vaccines might outstrip supply in some countries.
He informed that the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization has now recommended that, among the five risk groups, health workers and older adults are the highest priority groups for influenza vaccination during the COVID-19 pandemic. “Another underutilized tool is the use of antivirals to treat people with influenza. We encourage all countries to use all the tools at their disposal,” he said.
Incidentally, during this year’s southern hemisphere winter, the number of seasonal flu cases and deaths was less than usual because of the measures put in place to contain COVID-19. “But we cannot assume the same will be true in the northern hemisphere flu season,” he warned.
– globalbihari bureau
