disease & medicine, clinical trials, infectious disease

Although scientists debate the ethics of deliberately infecting volunteers with SARS-CoV-2, plenty of consenting participants have been exposed to all sorts of pathogens in prior trials.

UPenn’s Katharine Bar discusses ongoing clinical trials to explore the efficacy of treating patients with plasma from individuals who have recovered from an infection.

Upon seeing pregnant women sick with COVID-19 at a University of Pennsylvania hospital, researchers there wrote trial protocols for blood transfusions to treat the disease that include expecting mothers.

The study showed that a vaccine combining a variety of immune-stimulating components was no more effective than a placebo.

Researchers aim to deploy the trial in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, which has been ravaged by Ebola for a year.

The study will examine the efficacy of four drugs—an antiviral and three monoclonal antibodies—that are already being used to treat patients in Democratic Republic of Congo.