Page 30 - Palliative Care, Trials and COVID-19 Tribulations: First-hand experience shared by the experts at ground zero

Q&A Session

1. Prof. Dr. Goh Bak Leong: What are the new drugs that will be investigated in
Solidarity Plus?

Dr. Chow Ting Soo:

Solidarity Plus is currently looking at three medications: (i) anti-malarial drug,
Artesunate that suggested that there is an entry inhibitor for the virus to enter the cell.
It will be used in intravenous form; (ii) monoclonal antibodies called Infliximab; (iii)
Imatinib. These are all anti-inflammatory drugs that the development group found as
fairly promising drugs that we are going to use. It will be an open-label, randomized
trial versus standard of care. In other words, it is actually at a very early stage right
now, as none of the countries have started because we are in the stage of getting
approval.

2. Prof. Dr. Goh Bak Leong: Is Ivermectin one of the drugs that will be tested in the
future Solidarity trial?

Dr. Chow Ting Soo:

The answer is no. It is not in the development group or not thinking of getting
Ivermectin onboard.

3. Dato’ Dr. Goh Pik Pin: Dr. Richard, I know you advocate that patients, although
at the end-of-life or with end-organ disease, should go for COVID vaccination.
What is the reason for doing that?

Dr. Richard Lim Boon Leong:

Thank you very much Dato’ Dr. Goh Pik Pin for the question. I think it is still very
important and very valid for someone even if you have some kind of life-limiting
condition like an end-organ failure or even cancer, just still be vaccinated. Why? This
is because I think that the vaccination can actually help to prevent or protect you from
a very severe kind of illness.

Sometimes in that situation, hopefully you may not actually need to be in a hospital
isolation ward. Many patients sometimes get sick, and they are in the isolation ward,
and they are away from the family. It is very isolating and kind of miserable to spend
that last moment away from their loved ones. We also have cases where people have
advanced cancer, and now they developed COVID-19. They would prefer to stay at