Clinical trial to evaluate COVID-19 drug treatment

The University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha announced Tuesday it is enrolling adults diagnosed with the Coronavirus for a new clinical drug trial to treat the disease. Dr. Andre Kalil, an infectious disease specialist and professor of internal medicine at UNMC said they will test about 400 patients at about 50 sites globally to participate in the trial.

Dr. Kalil said half of the patients will take the new drug and the other half will take the placebo medication which has the same infusion as the new drug but without the active drugs.

All potential patients will have a physical exam before receiving treatment and will be randomly assigned to the investigational treatment group or the placebo group.

This is the first clinical trial in the United States to evaluate an experimental treatment for COVID-19.