3 ms·
Prophylaxis is for people who are currently negative (it's pre-exposure, not post). You need to give them the medication (or a placebo) and then wait long enoug
by apendleton 6y ago
Prophylaxis is for people who are currently negative (it's pre-exposure, not post). You need to give them the medication (or a placebo) and then wait long enough for a significant fraction of each group to have had an opportunity to become infected, so you can meaningfully compare the trial group with the control group. They're all wearing PPE and such anyway (both groups), so not that many are going to seroconvert even in the control group in just a couple of weeks.
- Reelin 6y agoI don't see how any of this would increase the time to evaluate a given study participant beyond ~2 weeks? Regarding what you said about prophylaxis, the study page specifies that participants will either: * Have had close contact with a known positive individual within the past 4 days (but not have any symptoms themselves yet). * Have developed symptoms (and tested positive) within the past 4 days. Technically that's not really a prophylaxis, but it's early enough that it's practically the same thing. It's also more representative of how we would be likely to employ the medication in the real world. (Also I don't see how it would be ethical to intentionally expose people, and waiting for people to be inadvertently exposed seems impractical for a number of reasons). Edit: Whoops. I had slightly confused the smaller PATCH trial (https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04329923 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04329923) and the larger University of Minnesota one (https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04308668 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04308668). It looks like the PATCH trial is indeed only testing actual prophylaxis in healthcare workers, and specifies a two month period for each participant in the trial.