There’s no confirmed treatment for Covid yet: Health ministry

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi:1.5.2020

The health ministry on Thursday said there was, so far, no confirmed treatment protocol for Covid-19 and nothing conclusive had come up as far as vaccines were concerned.

“Multiple organisations in the government are engaged in multiple vaccine trials for Covid-19. Besides, we are also part of solidarity trials with the WHO. Some candidate vaccines have been identified. But, nothing conclusive has come up,” said the health ministry joint secretary Lav Agarwal.

Briefing the media on the current Covid-19 situation in the country, he said, “Multiple stages have to be passed to conclude safe and efficacious use of a vaccine by human beings. As far as India is concerned, we have identified Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) to begin with as a prophylaxis (preventive treatment).”

The ministry had in March issued a detailed advisory on the use of HCQ as prophylaxis for SARSCoV-2 infection.

Responding to a question on US study on Remdesivir antiviral, Agarwal said, “As of now, there is no confirmed treatment protocol for Covid-19. Remdesivir is one protocol which is being examined world over. Even the study on Remdesivir by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) has not conclusively proved its effectiveness. We are waiting for larger evidence to be generated for us to take meaningful action at the field level.”