COVID-19 Clinical Trials and Expanded Access

Several patients with hypoxaemic SARS-CoV2 pneumonia were able to benefit from hyperbaric oxygen treatment (HBOT) in China. In a clinical case published in the Chinese journal of hyperbaric medicine, treatment with repeated HBO sessions prevented admission to intensive care unit with mechanical ventilation in a patient aged 69 who presented with signs of respiratory decompensation. HBOT is the most powerful oxygenation modality in the body today. HBOT can dramatically increase the amount of dissolved oxygen in the blood. HBOT not only promotes blood transport but also its tissue delivery. Furthermore, HBOT has specific immunomodulatory properties, both humoral and cellular, making it possible, for example, to reduce the intensity of the inflammatory response and to stimulate antioxidant defenses by repeating sessions. A virucidal capacity of HBOT might also be involved. HBOT is generally regarded as safe with very few adverse events. Following this feedback, it is proposed in the context of crisis management related to SARS-CoV2 to assess the value of HBO treatment of patients with CoV2 pneumonia. Indeed, it seems essential to propose therapeutic strategies to limit the risk of respiratory decompensation requiring admission to intensive care unit for patients with SARS-CoV2 pneumonia.

CCAP is an investigator-initiated multicentre, randomized, double blinded, placebo-controlled trial, which aims to assess the safety and efficacy of treatment with convalescent plasma for patients with moderate-severe COVID-19. Participants will be randomized 2:1 to two parallel treatment arms: Convalescent plasma, and intravenous placebo. Primary outcome is a composite endpoint of all-cause mortality or need of invasive mechanical ventilation up to 28 days.

Prospective randomized trial to assess the antiviral efficacy of Pegylated Interferon Lambda (180 mcg SC injection) vs.placebo in up to 20 subjects with COVID-19 infection.

ACEIs as treatment for COVID19

The aim of the project is to better understand the Covid-19 inpatient course of the disease and to quickly identify the positive experiences in the treatment in order to update guidelines for the treatment and use of medication.

Patients presenting to the emergency department, or needing hospitalization, for a variety of medical conditions often require non-invasive ventilation (breathing support). For example, for a person with shortness of breath as a complication of COPD (Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) the gold standard of care requires application of a BiPAP machine. However, in the current environment of COVID-19, the aerosols produced by this machine in a COVID-19 positive patient pose serious potential harms to healthcare providers and other patients. All patients with similar symptoms to COVID-19 need to be treated as positive until definite testing determines otherwise. The best test available for COVID-19 takes up to 4 hours to determine the patients status, which is too long to delay application of a BiPAP. This could lead to either a delay in care or the need for invasive breathing measures (intubation), which requires intense resource utilization, may not be in line with a patient's goals of care, and could cause serious harms (i.e. infection, medication reactions, etc.) in patients who do not need it. The use of a closed-loop BiPAP machine in which no expired air is released into the environment would solve these problems. Building off the failures of a similar approach that was trialed in Italy in response to the COVID-19 crisis, this project will develop and test a novel closed-loop BiPAP system.

Multicenter cohort of patients followed for 6 months during the pandemic in France with biocollection of sera and peripheral blood mononuclear cells

COVID-19 is a respiratory illness caused by SARS-CoV-2 with a range of symptoms from mild, self-limiting respiratory tract infections to severe progressive pneumonia, multiorgan dysfunction and death. A portion of individuals with COVID-19 experience life-threatening hypoxia requiring supplemental oxygen and mechanical ventilation. Management of hypoxia in this population is complicated by contraindication of non-invasive ventilation and limitations in access to mechanical ventilation and critical care staff given the clinical burden of disease. Positional therapy is readily deployable and may ultimately be used to treat COVID-19 related respiratory failure in resources limited settings; and, it has been demonstrated to improve oxygenation and is easy to implement in the clinical setting. The overall goal of this randomized controlled trial is to establish the feasibility of performing a randomized trial using a simple, minimally invasive positional therapy approach to improve hypoxia and reduce progression to mechanical ventilation. The objectives are to examine the effectiveness and feasibility of maintaining an inclined position in patients with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 associated hypoxemic respiratory failure. The investigators hypothesize that (1) oxyhemoglobin saturation will improve with therapy, (2) participants will tolerate and adhere to the intervention, and that (3) participants who adhere to positional therapy will have reduced rates of mechanical ventilation at 72 hours. If successful, this feasibility trial will demonstrate that a simple, readily deployed nocturnal postural maneuver is well tolerated and reverses underlying defects in ventilation and oxygenation due to COVID-19. It will also inform the design of a pivotal Phase III trial with estimates of sample sizes for clinically relevant outcomes.

Covid-19 is a recently emerging infectious disease with a very large impact on health care world-wide. The disease is still poorly described. It is an urgent need for better clinical characteristics. A prospective, quality register is therefore established for increasing the knowledge about the disease, the covid patients and the prognosis.

This study proposes to evaluate clinical outcomes and viral load in COVID-19 infected patients with early moderate and severe disease admitted to the hospital and randomized to one of three arms. Patients will be randomized to supportive care, OR hydroxychloroquine alone, OR hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin.