experts say that around one in three
patients admitted hospital in the UK
with Kovac 19 have died and that
underlines the need for new treatments
for coronavirus but several existing
medicines for other conditions are
undergoing trials in the world's biggest
study of potential treatments as our
medical correspondent Fergus Walsh tells
us now what would the world give for a
cure for coronavirus it has turned
hospital wards into alien landscapes
Stafford Addenbrooke's in Cambridge must
be shielded from the highly infectious
virus patients like Peter who's 89 must
rely on oxygen
the one thing known to help fighting for
this baby babe that was all about day
three oh it's for you the toll on
individuals and their families has been
enormous peter is part of a national
trial which is examining five drugs used
for other conditions to see if they work
for coronavirus until they get results
doctors have limited options so it's
extraordinarily difficult to what a
large number of patients get so
incredibly unwell and know that we have
no therapies anywhere in the world that
are proven to be efficacious it means
that there's an urgent health needs to
do research in this space so that we can
understand what treatments work and what
don't drugs for HIV and malaria are
being tried to see if they can help stop
the virus replicating in the body other
patients are being given treatments to
reduce inflammation and dampen the
immune system which can go haywire
Jeff who's 60 has had cancer he can't
shake off coronavirus after being
infected six weeks ago why something's
treated with chemo twice I've had full
remission and the last one was only
certainly ended last year and then when
you get this he signed up for two
clinical trials what's the point what's
important coming into a hospital be
pumped full of all sorts of things and
nobody really knows what it was what
there is okay probably what helped me
but you know but it might help people
that followed behind me the first
results of the trials could come as
early as June it'll be here at the big
data Institute in Oxford that the trial
results will be analyzed in a little
over a month around 8,000 patients for
nearly a hundred and seventy hospitals
throughout the UK have been enrolled in
what is the biggest clinical study in
the world in two kovat 19 treatments at
the peak we were enrolling 400 patients
a day lessons have been learned from the
swine flu pandemic when experimental
treatments were not properly assessed
the best example is the 2009 pandemic
where tens of thousands of patients were
treated with drugs outside of clinical
trials and we didn't get any results we
can't afford to do that again we need to
know what works for covered 90 and so
these trials I think of critically
important don't expect a cure but even a
treatment that is partially effective
could save thousands of lives
and pave the way for other better
medicines and furgus is with me now
clearly and understandably there is
intense interest in the progress that
scientists and others are making in this
area so how would you sum up where we
are in terms of the search for a cure
well you none of the doctors or
scientists
I've spoken to is expecting a magic
bullet something that will stop
coronavirus in its tracks for the
majority of patients it's great that the
trials are underway but they are
training drugs that would develop for
other conditions
now what we should hope for perhaps is a
moderate effect from those if they are
successful say something that reduced
mortality by 20% it may not sound much
but in the UK that could save thousands
of lives now in the US tonight there are
some early results from an antiviral
drug originally developed for Ebola
which are being hailed which seemed to
suggest that it's cut the duration of
symptoms in patients with coronavirus
from 15 to 11 days but it comes off the
back of some other data that suggested
that it didn't work and that's why these
trials are so important we've got to
wait for them to come through in the
coming months and then of course we've
got to wait for the dozens of vaccines
that are in development so it's going to
be a long haul focus once again many
thanks folks foster medical
correspondent