The COVID-19 Clinical Research Coalition is calling for nominations for members of a new Therapeutics Working Group. In low-resource settings, there is relatively little COVID-19 therapeutics research taking place. There is also uncertainty on the future affordability and availability of any proven therapeutics in such settings. A platform to discuss COVID-19 therapeutics in low-resource settings and promote relevant research and priorities would be beneficial. A new coalition working group has been proposed, to fill this gap.

Excessive bureaucracy has been identified as an obstacle to the conduct of clinical research in many settings. Complex requirements and lengthy processes often delay and sometimes prevent the initiation of research work. In this survey, we sought to gain high-level insights into how researchers and health professionals regard the effects of the various bureaucratic processes and their impact on the conduct of COVID- 19 clinical research.

The COVID Moonshot, a non-profit, open-science consortium of scientists from around the world dedicated to the discovery of globally affordable and easily-manufactured antiviral drugs against COVID-19 and future viral pandemics.

Coalition Ethics Working Group members Ms Katharine Wright and Dr Leonardo de Castro recently participated in the 14th Annual Philippines Health Research Week under the theme ‘Health R&D in the New Normal: Moving Towards Universal Health Care’. A key outcome of the meeting was the adoption of the Ethical Compass as a guide for Research Ethics Committee processes in the Philippines.

Building on concerns of low access to and availability of diagnostics for COVID-19 in resource-limited settings, a survey was carried out to provide initial insight into the country-specific landscape of diagnostics. This survey report highlights the current tests available in different countries, obstacles to access and availability of diagnostics, as well as possible solutions to the identified obstacles as perceived by respondents.  

Coalition member and co-founder DNDi has just issued a policy report, ‘Another triumph of science, but defeat for access? Ensuring innovation and equitable access for COVID-19 treatments, other infectious diseases, and future pandemics’.  The report urges the international community to learn the early lessons – and avoid repeating the mistakes – of the past year when it comes to innovation of and access to COVID-19 therapeutics, a deeply neglected area within the COVID-19 response.

Dr Brenda Okware, Scientific Coordinator of the COVID-19 Clinical Research Coalition, was recently featured on Canada's Most Listened-to Radio Program, The Current hosted by Matt Galloway on CBC Radio. She discussed recent COVID-19 developments in Uganda as well as equitable access to vaccines in low- and middle-income countries.

PLATCOV is a phase 2 platform study assessing antivirals in early COVID-19 disease. It is looking for sites to be able to rapidly set up and recruit into this platform trial within 4 months, for an 18 month period. The study is run out of the Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit in Bangkok, Thailand, led by Professor Sir Nicholas White and sponsored by the University of Oxford. The study has funding and is ready to begin.

Group of emergency physicians advocates rapid and simple measures to reduce medical oxygen wastage in crisis context of insufficient oxygen.

An article published today in The Lancet calls for urgent collaboration and coordination for unmet, underfunded COVID-19 research priorities in low-resource settings.