COVID: Max hospital group to study use of HCQ among healthcare workers

New Delhi, Apr 23 () Amid rising number of coronavirus cases in the country, a private hospital group on Thursday announced that it will conduct a large-scale observational study involving the use of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) prophylaxis among its healthcare workers, including those taking care of COVID-19 patients.

The study by Max Healthcare aims to collect sero-epidemiological data from 10,000 healthcare workers employed at various facilities owned by Max Healthcare and Radiant Lifecare, and study the effectiveness of HCQ as a prophylaxis for coronavirus infection, it said in a statement.

"The large-scale observational study will involve use of hydroxychloroquine prophylaxis among its healthcare workers, including those taking care of COVID-19 positive patients," it said.

The study will look at large amount of data from healthcare workers and try to establish a correlation between the use of HCQ prophylaxis and the incidence of COVID-19 among healthcare workers.

Based on the results of this study, Max Healthcare might decide to conduct a randomised control study of the HCQ prophylaxis, it said.

This is the first study involving COVID-19 that has been approved by ICMR. This is also the first study from India to be registered on http://clinicaltrials.gov, a global registry for clinical trials, the hospital group claimed.

''Since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus disease COVID-19, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the clinicians and scientists community have been in a race to research various aspects of this disease to explore possible prevention and treatment aspects. It is only clinical research that will help prevention of further spread of this disease.

"The main aim is to reach out to maximum number of healthcare workers, follow up on incidence of COVID in them and understand the disease pattern in relation to HCQ in COVID prevention," said Dr Sujeet Jha, Principal Investigator, Principal Director, Endocrinology and Diabetes at Max Healthcare.

Abhay Soi, Chairman Max Healthcare said, "We are hopeful that this will be our small but significant contribution in the global fight against COVID-19''.

The results of the study are likely to be published in another three weeks, it said. KND AARAAR