Solidarity trial

[citation needed] The trial intends to rapidly assess thousands of COVID-19 infected people for the potential efficacy of existing antiviral and anti-inflammatory agents not yet evaluated specifically for COVID-19 illness, a process called "repurposing" or "repositioning" an already-approved drug for a different disease.

The trial physician records and submits follow-up information about the subject status and treatment, completing data input via the Castor EDC Platform.

[2][5] A similar web-based study to Solidarity, called "Discovery", was initiated in March across seven countries by INSERM (Paris, France).

According to John-Arne Røttingen, chief executive of the Research Council of Norway and chairman of the Solidarity trial international steering committee, the trial would be considered effective if therapies are determined to "reduce the proportion of patients that need ventilators by, say, 20%, that could have a huge impact on our national health-care systems.

"[8] According to the WHO Director General, the aim of the trial is to "dramatically cut down the time needed to generate robust evidence about what drugs work",[9] a process using an "adaptive design".

[2] They are:[2][7] Due to safety concerns and evidence of heart arrhythmias leading to higher death rates, the WHO suspended the hydroxychloroquine arm of the Solidarity trial in late May 2020,[14][15] then reinstated it,[16] then withdrew it again when an interim analysis in June showed that hydroxychloroquine provided no benefit to hospitalized people severely infected with COVID-19.

These drugs are already used for other indications: artesunate is used for malaria, imatinib for cancers, and infliximab, an anti-TNF agent is used for Crohn's Disease and rheumatoid arthritis.