New trial at Medical College of Wisconsin focuses on COVID-19 patients recovering at home

WAUWATOSA, Wis. (CBS 58) -- The Medical College of Wisconsin has joined a national effort to study new treatments for COVID-19 patients who are recovering at home. 

The trial is called ACTIV-2 and is funded by the National Institutes of Health. There are sites across the country. The Medical College of Wisconsin is the only spot in Wisconsin participating in the trial, according to a press release. 

"We're looking for any adults who have tested positive for COVID within the last six days, looking for people who have not had symptoms for more than ten days. We're hoping that as soon as they get a positive test result, if they can reach out to us and we can talk to them more about that and give them more information," said Dr. Zouyan Lu, assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Medical College of Wisconsin. 

Lu says the trial is focused on those who aren't sick enough to be in the hospital and hopefully won't ever have to be in the hospital. 

"As we learn more about COVID and potential treatments and things like that, we kind of want to figure out what works best for people early on when they're not so sick that they have to be in the hospital versus what's going on when they get in the hospital. The patients who aren't in the hospital are kind of different from the patients who are in the hospital," he said. 

Lu says the trial is adaptive. 

"Hopefully as new treatments become available, those will all become available to participants in the trial," he said. 

He says right now they have the antibody treatment from Eli Lilly that was approved by the FDA for emergency use last month. 

"What that means is it looks promising, in that it seems to help people have less virus in their nose, less symptoms, decrease how often they have to go to the emergency room," he said, "Part of what the study is doing is trying to gather more information, get more robust data to support those initial findings."

If you'd like to learn more information and participate in the trial, click here.