BARRIE, ONT. -- COVID-19's grip on the globe has had medical researchers striving to find the best ways to treat those who become critically ill with the virus.
Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre (RVH) is one of 40 health centres across Canada, examining potential therapies and testing medications.
Dr. Giulio Didiodato is a critical care physician and the Chief Research Scientist for the Canadian Treatments for COVID-19 or 'CATCO' study at the Barrie hospital. He said the studies require thousands, if not tens of thousands, of patients to be enrolled.
"We will never be able to recruit all those patients in academic hospitals," Dr. Giulio Didiodato said.
The uniquely Canadian perspective is part of a global collaboration called the Solidarity Trial led by the World Health Organization.
Research has proven hydroxychloroquine and lopinavir/ritonavir treatment to be ineffective.
"Two newer medications have been put in to replace them," Dr. Didiodato said the combination of interferon beta-1a and remdesivir is now being evaluated in the CATCO study.
Patients who require hospitalization at RVH may be eligible to participate in the trial, but Dr. Didiodato said researchers are a long way from finding a cure or an effective vaccine, adding prevention is the best medicine.
"That's what's going to get us through COVID-19," he continued.
The clinical trial has no specific end date but is expected to run for about two years.
