Walsall Manor Hospital has recruited its first patient this year to the COVID-19 RECOVERY clinical trial – the 104th from Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust to participate in Covid-19 research since the start of the pandemic.

This international clinical trial, taking place at 191 sites worldwide, aims to identify treatments that may be beneficial for people hospitalised with suspected or confirmed COVID-19.

Dr Punam Sinha, who has supported the patient along with colleagues on Ward 3 of the hospital, said: “We are so grateful to our patient for consenting to take part in this study, which will give us valuable data about treatment options for the virus. Everyone who participates in research is really making a contribution to hastening the end of the pandemic.”

RECOVERY is an option for confirmed COVID-19 patients in the hospital and the current available treatment arms are:

● Empagliflozin
● Sotrovimab

Empagliflozin is being tested to see if it benefits COVID-19 patients through multiple mechanisms, such as metabolism and inflammation.

Sotrovimab has previously been trialled for patients in the community (COMET-ICE study) and it demonstrated a 85% reduction in hospital admission when given to patients within five days of symptom onset, but there have been no large trials of its use in already hospitalised COVID-19 patients.

This trial is supported by grants to the University of Oxford from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), UK Research and Wellcome.