A United States health institute has chosen the leading Philippine health institute to be a clinical-trial site in a global study on tuberculosis.
The US’s National Institutes of Health (NIH)-National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (ACTG) has chosen De La Salle Health Sciences Institute (DLSHSI) as the clinical-trial site.
DLSHSI is the first in the Philippines to be tapped by NIH as a clinical-trial site.
The trial will be under the umbrella of a multicountry study, entitled “Protecting Household Contacts on Exposure to Newly Diagnosed Index Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis Patients [Phoenix MDRTB].”
It aims to protect children and other family members from getting infected with tuberculosis after a member of the household contracts multidrug resistant TB.
In the Philippines the challenge of controlling TB has become more difficult with many patients developing multidrug resistant TB, and as a result, exposing children and other members of their household to this more severe disease.
Dr. Melchor Victor Frias IV of DLSHSI’s College of Medicine and former vice chancellor for research at DLSHSI will be the coinvestigator and Clinical Research Site leader.
As a trial site, DLSHSI will receive funding from the NIH, while DLSHSI will be responsible for conducting the trial, which includes providing qualified personnel, equipment, materials, facilities and patient recruitment, enrollment and completing the required visits.
On September 19 representatives from US-NIH’s Center for TB, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Emory University, signed a Core Funding Agreement with DLSHSI President Br. Gus Boquer, FSC, to start up the study.
Emory University is a leading research institution, medical, education and health facility based in Atlanta Georgia in the US and is one of the clinical-trial units also funded by the NIH.