10 million SEK to national study of COVID-19

In June, we reported that the Swedish Research Council was to fund Sweden’s participation in the Solidarity trial, a major clinical WHO study, where a number of antiviral medicines are tested on patients being treated for COVID-19. However, due to the high level of mortality seen in patients receiving some of these medicines, the Swedish network for the WHO study decided that Sweden would not participate in the study.

Instead, the Swedish Research Council is now providing the same network of infection clinics in Sweden with funding of 10 million SEK to conduct another national study into COVID-19. The study is called ImmCoVA, and is expected to run for three years, starting in October. The study focuses on immune blockers to counteract excess reaction of the immune system to infection, known as ‘cytokine storm’. The study will investigate whether treatment with two specific immunosuppressing substances can result in improvement, and at best in patients recovering more quickly than with standard treatments.

The Karolinska University Hospital is leading the study, and patients will be recruited from five university hospitals.