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COVID-19 Vaccine Research and Access to COVID-19 Treatments

COVID-19 Vaccine Research and Access to New Treatments

This week, we heard about research studies investigating how protective the COVID-19 vaccines are against severe disease and how effective new COVID-19 treatments are, especially in people with weakened immune systems.

MELODY Trial

NHS Blood and Transplant are currently looking for organ transplant recipients to take part in a new research study, assessing the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccines.

The research is funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) in collaboration with the following charities: Kidney Research UK, Vasculitis UK, Blood Cancer UK and the Cystic Fibrosis Trust.

PANORAMIC Trial

PANORAMIC is a UK-wide clinical trial sponsored by the University of Oxford.

It is investigating treatments that can help people with COVID-19 to get better early and reduce the need to be admitted to hospital. They are recruiting volunteers to take part if they are:

  • currently experiencing COVID-19 symptoms beginning in the last 5 days.
  • AND: have had a positive PCR test for COVID-19
  • AND: are aged 50 or over OR: are aged 18 or over with certain preexisting conditions. This includes chronic liver diseases like PSC.

Access to COVID-19 treatments

Neutralising monoclonal antibodies (nMABs) or antivirals for non-hospitalised patients with COVID-19 will be available as treatment options for non-hospitalised adults and children (aged 12 years and above) with weakened immune systems who get COVID-19.