ISLAMABAD: The Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) has given special permission to begin the clinical trials of plasma therapy to treat patients of the novel coronavirus in the country, Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Health Zafar Mirza said on Thursday.
Talking to media in the federal capital, Mirza also announced that the drug regulatory body had allowed drug manufacturers to fast-track the refining of raw materials used to make chloroquine, a drug that health experts believe is partially effective in treating virus patients.
The special assistant for health further revealed that last week he had established the DRAP Expert Committee on ventilators to test locally manufactured medical equipment. “At great speed they have already produced a fast track acceptance test procedure for locally developed mechanical ventilators for COVID-19,” said Mirza.
Mirza noted that companies manufacturing hand sanitisers had also been asked to comply with international standards or risk being pulled from the market.
On Wednesday, the CEO of Abbottabad's Ayub Medical College Dr Umer Farooq had said that America's National Library of Medicine (NLM) had included Pakistan in the countries to derive a cure for the coronavirus pandemic.
Speaking to Geo News , Dr Farooq said: "The US institution has approved a 20-member team from the medical facility to work on deriving the cure."
"They [NLM] praised Pakistani experts and based on our credentials we were allowed to start testing for the cure," he said, adding: "Three groups of 25 people each will be made initially for the trials."
"The first group will be given two medicines, azithromycin and chloroquine," he said, adding that the second batch would be given chloroquine only.
"The third group will be treated with traditional medicines," he noted.
People will be selected on the basis of their age and the severity of their diseases, he said. "The ones suffering from heart and major diseases will not be selected for the trail."
"After US' Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gives it the green signal, a cure for coronavirus would be available for the world population," he added.
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