Heroes of the Pandemic 03: Dr. Salim Yusuf - Leveraging world-class expertise and global network to launch COVID-19 clinical trial
When Dr. Salim Yusuf, Executive Director, Population Health Research Institute, and his colleague began discussing how to source much-needed ventilators for COVID-19 patients, they concluded more had to be done.
“We had to go beyond tracking down ventilators because the ventilator is the end stage of the whole situation,” said Dr. Yusuf, Distinguished University Professor of Medicine, McMaster University.
They shifted their focus to launch a clinical trial as part of the global effort to find treatments that will help prevent COVID-19 patients from needing ventilation or dying.
Within 24 hours, Dr. Yusuf and his colleagues made the necessary connections and assembled a team of 15 Hamilton area experts to lead a clinical trial that investigates the combination of the antibiotic azithromycin taken with chloroquine, a malaria medication.
A wealth of research expertise and experience in Hamilton
“The main thing about Hamilton is that we have a world-class group running large clinical trials globally with a lot of experience. There’s a tradition of Hamilton and McMaster University doing high-quality clinical trials of research,” said Dr. Yusuf, whose research apart from this study focuses on heart disease, stroke and diabetes prevention and treatment
The clinical trial launched in April 2020 and is aiming to run in 20 Canadian centres and up to 70 centres globally (with numerous countries already participating). The first trials are expected to be completed in summer 2020 with the second wave of trials completed by the end of the year.
“All of the treatments that everyone is testing right now are based on an educated guess and most of the trials are unlikely to be positive,” said Dr. Yusuf. “But because so many trials are happening and so many treatments are being tested, one or two will come out with some very clear results – and that’s a start.”
The clinical trial is a true team effort
Dr. Yusuf stresses how essential the team approach has been to this clinical trial.
“Today’s science is not about individuals. It’s a team sport.”
In fact, Dr. Yusuf credits his team’s strong network and decades of experience collaborating globally as being instrumental in their ability get the trial started within a compressed timeline.
“As a scientist, I feel tremendously proud that people like me around the world are the ones that will solve the problem,” said Dr, Yusuf. “And the teams in Hamilton will be part of the solution.”