A BRADFORD professor who is a national lead on a "ground-breaking" Covid-19 trial is urging people in the district to take part.

Professor Mahendra Patel is professor in pharmacy at the University of Bradford and also national lead on pharmacy for the PANORAMIC trial, which is being led by the University of Oxford.

He said it could help clinically vulnerable people recover much quicker from Covid and may even prevent the need for hospitalisation.

Prof Patel said: “This could be a ground-breaking drug, especially for the clinically vulnerable.

"We want to ensure the trial is accessible to all. This is an anti-viral agent to tackle Covid-19, the first of its kind in the world to be trialled like this. It could help reduce symptoms and help stop you going to hospital.”

The trial is a first-of-its-kind and will test treatments for use early on in the illness by people in the community with Covid-19, and those who are at higher risk of complications.

It has been designed as a ‘platform clinical trial’, meaning it can rapidly evaluate several anti-viral treatments over time that could help clinically vulnerable people with Covid-19 recover sooner, prevent the need for hospital admission and so ease the burden on the NHS.

The UK Antiviral Taskforce has selected all treatments to be tested - the first treatment to be investigated through the trial will be molnupiravir, a Covid anti-viral pill which has already been licensed by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency.

Prof Patel said the trial will be working closely with pharmacists and their teams to raise awareness of the trials and to recruit volunteers from disadvantaged and diverse backgrounds.

The trial’s Chief Investigator, Professor Chris Butler, Professor of Primary Care in the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, said: ‘It is early on in the illness, when people are still being cared for in the community, that treatments for Covid-19 could have their greatest benefit.

"So far, a lot of the research has focussed on finding out if well-known drugs can be repurposed to treat Covid-19. 

"This new trial will test whether exciting, new antiviral treatments that are more specific to Covid-19 help people in the community recover faster and reduce the need for treatment in hospital."

The trial will also assess the effectiveness of the treatments on reducing shedding of the virus, as well as preventing the spread of Covid-19 by offering treatment to some household contacts of participants.

Who can join the trial and how?

  • People can join the study if they are aged 50 and over, aged between 18 to 49 years with underlying health conditions that make them clinically more vulnerable, or have been unwell with Covid-19 for less than five days.
  • All participants should have recorded a positive PCR test within the past seven days.
  • Participants will receive either the anti-viral treatment plus the current standard care, or the current standard of care without the new anti-viral treatment.
  • Around 5,300 people will be recruited to each group – up to 10,600 volunteers in total will be needed for testing whether the first novel anti-viral in the study reduces the need for people to be admitted to hospital
  • Taking part is easy and free of charge
  • You can join online or by phone from home 
  • Join by visiting www.panoramictrial.org