Fingers crossed as Kenya joins search for a cure in drugs tests
What you need to know:
- Recruitment for the clinical trial of remdesivir and tocilizumab (TCZ) is ongoing.
- An antiviral medicine, it was originally developed to treat Ebola and is administered via injection.
- Recruitment is expected to end on February 28, 2021 and results are expected to be published by the end of next year.
Kenya is participating in clinical trials for two drugs which, if successful, will be used to treat Covid-19.
The tests are being done at a time when Covid-19 cases have soared in the country and deaths from the disease have begun to rise by double digits.
Recruitment for the clinical trial of remdesivir and tocilizumab (TCZ) is ongoing.
Remdesivir is one of the candidates in the solidarity trial of drugs by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
An antiviral medicine, it was originally developed to treat Ebola and is administered via injection.
SOLIDARITY TRIAL DRUGS
Other drugs that are being tested in the solidarity trial but not in Kenya are interferon-beta, originally used to treat multiple sclerosis and manufactured by Biogen Inc and marketed by Bayer.
Lopinavir/ritonavir and hydroxychloroquine had been identified as a potential treatment for trials but was discontinued by WHO for producing “little or no reduction in the mortality of hospitalised Covid-19 patients when compared to standard of care.”
Testing of remdesivir will be done at Coast General Hospital, Kenyatta National Hospital, Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH), Nairobi Hospital, Kilifi | Wellcome Trust, Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital and Kenyatta University Hospital.
Although the trial of the drug does not have a well-defined sample size, it may go up to 10,000 and will involve adults aged 18 years and above who have been admitted to hospital with Covid-19 and are not on any treatment with other drugs being studied.
RECRUITMENT
Recruitment is expected to end on February 28, 2021 and results are expected to be published by the end of next year.
Last week, Roche Kenya Ltd announced the start of recruitment of Covid-19 patients for the study of TCZ — a drug used for the treatment for rheumatoid arthritis — at the Aga Khan University Hospital.
It is a randomised, “double-blind, placebo-controlled and multicentre study that will evaluate the efficacy of Actemra (tocilizumab) in the treatment of Covid-19 associated hospitalised pneumonia,” says AKUH.
A placebo is a substance that has no physical effects and that is given to patients who do not need medicine but think that they do, or used when testing new drugs.
This means that both participants and those administering the drug will not know whether they have received or used the drug or the placebo.
AKUH is one of the 86 locations where TCZ is being tested while Kenya becomes the only African country where recruitment into the study is ongoing. Although South Africa was earmarked for the study, it has not started recruiting. The trials will involve 379 participants from different nations and the study is expected to be completed in the next two months, at least by September 18.
Kenya, is also expected to start recruiting participants for Oxford’s ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine.
On Monday, a US biotech company, Moderna Inc, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) started its final phase of clinical testing of mRNA-1273. The study involves 30,000 participants who have been divided into two groups.
