A Sarnia research group has been selected to conduct a clinical trial for COVID-19 approved by Health Canada.
Bluewater Clinical Research Group, comprised of doctors Sean Peterson, John O'Mahony and Michael O'Mahony, will be investigating a treatment in non-hospitalized participants.
Dr. Peterson said participants must be at a higher risk of virus progression, due to one or more risk factors like diabetes, obesity, chronic kidney disease, congestive heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or be an individual over 55-years-old with moderate to severe asthma.
"It's an investigational treatment," said Peterson. "Half of the patients get placebo, half get a treatment. The treatment is what's called a monoclonal antibody (VIR-7831) specific to the SARS- CoV-2 virus, and the idea there is we want to see if that makes a difference in terms of how many patients go on from having mild disease to having moderate or severe COVID symptoms."
He said participants have to have a positive COVID-19 test to be eligible.
"(The participant's) symptoms have to be present within the last five days, so they couldn't have started prior to those last five days, so it's a pretty tight window right now. Most of us if we're getting symptoms and we get tested at one of the local testing centres it's about a two-to-three-day turnaround time. So, that's the most strict criteria, the symptoms would have had to have started within the last four or five days."
Peterson believes their site, at 481 London Road, was one of three locations in Canada selected to conduct the trial.
"Our site, Bluewater Clinical Research Group, we see about 1,500 patient visits a year related to clinical trials, so when the sponsor for this trial, which is a combination of GSK and a company called Vir Biotech, they looked at different sites across Canada and said what sites have done well in previous trials and what sites believe they can roll COVID-19 patients and they chose our site, plus a site in I believe Quebec City and I think there's a new site in Toronto as well."
Individuals interested in more information, or who want to participate, are asked to call 519-344-6612 or email info@bwresearch.ca.