COVID-19 Clinical Trials and Expanded Access

It is known that COVID-19 has a more negative clinical course and causes higher degrees of morbidity and mortality in case of COVID-19 in diabetic patients. However, the contribution of COVID-19 to hyperglycemia and its effect on glycemic parameters are uncertain. However, it is important to investigate homocysteine and lipid profile levels, respectively, and free radical levels known to be effective in the development of cardiovascular disease and diabetes due to oxidative stress, which can provide information about the identification and diagnosis of cardiovascular complications in the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, as the decrease in physical activity levels of individuals in the COVID-19 pandemic may cause possible secondary complications such as an increase in the risk of cardiovascular disease, determining the physical activity levels of individuals and encouraging them to physical activity is another important parameter to minimize the negative effects of the process. Patients who applied to Izmir Bakircay University Cigli Training and Research Hospital (Cigli Regional Education Hospital) and hospitalized in the COVID-19 service and healthy controls are planning to include in this study. Patients diagnosed with COVID-19 will be included in Group I (n: 20), patients diagnosed with both Type II Diabetes Mellitus and COVID-19 will be included in Group II (n: 20) and healthy controls will be included in Group III (n:20). Hemoglobin A1c levels, lipid profiles, homocysteine, free radical levels and physical activity levels will be compared between groups. In addition, the change in the relevant variables before and after COVID-19 treatment will be determined by in-group comparisons in Group I and Group II. This study, which has a prospective and randomized controlled research plan, is planned to be carried out between January and February 2021. Research data will be obtained from blood samples taken from participants. In addition, data on physical activity levels will be collected through a questionnaire. After analyzing the data obtained from the research with appropriate statistical methods, the data will be evaluated.

The proposed study will be conducted to investigate the mechanism of patients' responses to prone positioning with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and non-COVID-19 ARDS utilizing lung ultrasound.

The COVID-19 pandemic together with the strategies that are applied to control it are generating high morbidity and mortality worldwide. Its impact on health systems is worrisome, affecting all the population, even those who are not infected or at risk. The indirect impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the access to the medical care of patients on the waiting list for organ transplantation might be multifactorial, including the need to relocate health-related resources (medical personnel, supplies, critical care unit beds, etc), the risk of COVID-19 transmission among donors or patients on the waiting list, and also after transplantation. Additionally, the pandemic reduces significantly the donor pool. We consider that it is important to assess the impact that the pandemic has in particular individual populations, such as in patients requiring a liver transplant. Along with the lockdown, the rate of organ donation has dropped, and liver transplant programs across the world have reduced or suspended their activity. Unfortunately, this is invariably associated with an increase in mortality on the waiting list. Knowing the impact of the pandemic on patients who require a liver transplant will provide tools to understand and plan the health resources related to the care of these patients, not only at present but also in the following years.

COVID-19, an acute respiratory disease caused by coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), and in most cases, causes mild to moderate symptoms of fever, cough and dyspnea. However, a not insignificant portion, given the total number of people affected, will present symptoms of severe acute respiratory failure and multiple organ failure, requiring hospitalization under intensive care, use of mechanical ventilation, prolonged period of immobilization and, consequently, physical, cognitive and psychological damage, which may affect survivors for a long period after hospitalization. All of these factors are known to have an impact on various areas of life: personal, social and economic, which makes the need for continued specific care after hospital discharge relevant. In this context, the role of rehabilitation programs is fundamental, aiming not only at a safer dehospitalization, but also at the continuity of care with the objective of restoring the biopsychosocial skills of these individuals, allowing functional independence for activities of daily life and a shorter return physical and social activities performed before the disease. However, the big challenge for the health system is how to offer this on a large scale. Therefore, knowing the clinical and functional profile of these patients at discharge and verifying the viability of a digital platform for rehabilitation and monitoring of these patients is the first step to allow the creation of a new form of continuity of care and access to affected patients with serious diseases such as COVID-19 and other syndromes capable of generate functional impairment. Therefore,the investigators objective is to characterize and monitor the functional profile and exercise capacity of patients affected by COVID-19 at the hospital discharge, as well as to verify the viability and compliance of patients to the use of a digital platform for the application of a distance rehabilitation program.

Recently, a new clinical presentation called "long covid" has been reported, for patients with symptoms lasting for more than 4 weeks from the onset of the disease. Typically, the symptoms comprise dyspnea, cough, headache, arthralgia, fever, abdominal pain, asthenia and skin manifestations This project aims to evaluate the efficacy of Montelukast in improving the quality of life associated with respiratory symptoms in patients with persistent COVID-19 symptoms. The main objective is to compare the efficacy of low-dose Montelukast versus placebo to improve respiratory symptoms in patients with persistent COVID-19 symptoms.

This study was designed to evaluate the efficacy of Remdesivir and Baricitinib combination therapy for the treatment of severe Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) caused by Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Our aim is to compare the outcome of the "Remdesivir + Baricitinib" combination against "Remdesivir + Tocilizumab" therapy and find the best option for the management of ARDS in COVID-19 patients.

The COVID-19 pandemic is expected to remain as a public health threat and economic burden all over the world. The available proposed vaccines are still lacking large randomized controlled trials testing its efficacy and safety. Thus, the acceptance of vaccination between citizens as well as healthcare workers is not guaranteed. As the vaccine is starting to be distributed the acceptance of healthcare givers should be measured as they are usually the front line facing the problem and they have a responsibility to explain the need of immunization to the rest of population. Strategies to enhance the acceptance and trust of the available vaccines may be needed.

Cross-sectional study to detect latent COVID-19 infections in residents and staff of old people's and nursing homes in the city of Solingen with a prospective follow-up of 6 months in a subgroup.

COVID-19 has affected almost all countries in the world. Every other country is constantly working towards its treatment and development of vaccines, with little to no success so far. Recently, several regimens have been tried as antiviral medicine. Among these medicines, Favipiravir is considered a broad-spectrum antiviral with the spectrum of activity noted against a wide range of RNA viruses & a good oral antiviral drug with > 97% bioavailability. It has already proved its safety profile as it has received FDA indication for drug-resistant Influenza. There has been increasing evidence of favorable outcome against COVID-19 in terms of early viral clearance & quicker symptomatic relief however, most of these studies lack strong statistical significance & are not peer-reviewed. Subjects will be categorized into two arms based on the severity of infection due to COVID-19 defined by NMC guidelines. Each arm will have respective two groups as the study drug group and control group. Based on the sample size calculation, subjects will be stratified & randomly enrolled in the study after checking the eligibility criteria at the screening visit. About 276 mild patients will be recruited for this trial and 400 moderate patients (including 10% loss ). Study arm groups will receive a Favipiravir treatment of 1800 mg PO BID on day 1, then 800 mg PO BID from day 2 onwards and control groups will receive the same quantity of Placebo. Treatment will be continued till 5 days after for mild groups and 10 days for moderate groups. Eligible patients will be randomly assigned (1:1) to either Favipiravir or Placebo among mild cases; and Favipiravir or Remdesivir among moderate cases. Randomization will be stratified by age group (18 to 40 years, 40 to 60 years and 60 to 80 years) and co-morbidity. The permuted block (30 patients per block) randomization sequence, including stratification, will be prepared by a statistician using STATA-15 software. Eligible patients will be allocated to the respective arm and will receive individually numbered packs, according to the sequence order as informed by the hotline. Informed written consent will be taken from the participants before commencing the study. All safety data, patient's baseline, clinical outcome data, data from endpoints and variables should be reported by the clinician and his/her team in a pre-instructed case report form (CRF) via a designated website. It is our assumption that if the study results come favorable, Favipiravir, when used in mild or moderate cases, might prevent progression of the disease to higher severity, helps achieve viral clearance early so as to positively impact disease transmission in the community, increase the quality of life by quicker symptom recovery & decrease health burden by shortening the length of stay at the hospital. These findings can also be useful in international scenarios where the world is looking for innovative measures to curb COVID-19 infection. The study findings will be disseminated within and outside the country and will be published in peer-reviewed journals.

The aim of this study is to explore the acceptability and feasibility of a novel medical device system for autonomously monitoring of breath and heart sounds in Covid-19 (detecting and monitoring the progression of Covid-19 pneumonitis, by evaluating sounds captured through a wearable device (Senti)). As a first-in-man study, the investigators will investigate the safety of the Senti device, the usability and acceptability of the device; and ensure technical and practical feasibility of the device in a real-world clinical setting. Healthcare resources have been stretched substantially by Covid-19. Devices which enable patients to be monitored at home and direct these precious resources to those who require them are needed more than ever. 10 patients will be recruited (the study participants) in two tranches (6 and 4) who are being discharged from A&E into the community, with Covid-19. These patients will wear the Senti device. The first tranche will use the device over a single session lasting 20 minutes only. The second tranche (which will include patients from tranche one, and which will only proceed if no adverse events are detected in tranche one), participants will wear the device at their discretion (particularly encouraged to wear overnight) over the course of 5 days. The investigators will survey the study participants to answer three key questions: What is the feasibility of the Senti data-capture device? Is this device usable in clinical practice? What are the requirements to train patients to use the device? The investigators will also consider: Does the device function technically and practically, in real-world clinical scenarios? What are the key expected and unexpected safety issues related to using the device (with a particular emphasis on whether the device is likely to cause pressure sores)? These questions will establish the feasibility of using the Senti data capture device as part of a novel medical device system for the autonomous evaluation and monitoring of bioacoustic signals for Covid-19.