"Our preliminary results show that in severe covid-19 disease, where you primarily have a lung failure, this treatment seems to save patients from falling into a respirator," says Adam Linder, associate professor and chief physician at the infection clinic at Skåne University Hospital in Lund.
Thanks to Lund University and Region Skåne's collaboration on transnational research, the study has gone from idea to reality in a record two months.
"Normally it takes five, ten or maybe twenty years," says Adam Linder.
The drug has already been approved by the Swedish Medicines Agency and the Ethics Committee. A large-scale study is now being started at the infection clinic in Lund, where fifty severely ill covid-19 patients will have to inhale cystic fibrosis medication. As many people receive placebo in the form of sodium chloride solution.
If you are so sure that the medicine is working, do you have to use placebo in some patients?
- Yes, we absolutely have to. From experience we know that you can fool yourself into thinking that something is better than it is.