World’s Largest COVID-19 Clinical Trial

The trial began on 19 March, and has been progressing rapidly – 9 days for first protocol to first patient and 13 days to reach 500 patients, while around 1,000 patients from 132 different hospitals have enrolled in the first 15 days. Every COVID-19 patient in the UK over the age of 18 years may be invited to participate. Those having accepted are randomly allocated to standard of care alone, or standard of care plus one of the additional treatments. Specifically, randomisation will initially be to one of the following arms:

Usual care. Usual care plus lopinavir-ritonavir (commonly used to treat HIV). Usual care plus low-dose dexamethasone (a type of steroid use in a range of conditions to reduce inflammation). Usual care plus hydroxychloroquine (a treatment for malaria).