A Clinical Trial of Gargling Agents in Reducing Intraoral Viral Load Among COVID-19 Patients

• Status: Not yet recruiting
• Trial end date: 2022-07-31
• Target enrollment: 0
• Participant gender: All

Summary

Pakistan is a resource restraint country, it's not possible to carry out coronavirus testing at mass scale. Simple cost effective intervention against the present pandemic is highly desirable.

For patients: Identifying an antiviral gargle that could substantially reduce the colonies of COVID-19 residing in mouth and oro-naso-pharynx is likely to reduce the viral load. Such reduction in the viral load through surface debridement could aid the effective immune response in improving the overall symptoms of the patients.

For dentists: This study is important because the nature of the dental profession involves aerosol production, carrying out dental work on asymptomatic patients carrying coronavirus puts the entire dental team at a great risk of not only acquiring the infection but also transmitting it to the others. Antiviral gargles could be used by dentist and their auxiliaries as prophylaxis.

For physicians and nurses: The risk of morbidity and mortality is high among physicians and nurses involved in the screening and management of Covid-19 patients. Globally, over 215 physicians and surgeons have died while taking care of Covid-19 patients. The cause of death is attributed to high exposure of viral load. The antiviral gargles and nasal lavage can decrease the fatalities among doctors and nurses.

Thus, patients, physicians, nurses and dentists, all could be benefited with this findings of this study.

• Phase: N/A
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers?: No

Details

• Lead Sponsor: Aga Khan University
• Collaborator: University of Karachi
• Treatments: Hydrogen Peroxide; Povidone; Povidone-Iodine

Criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

• The inclusion criteria are laboratory confirmed Covid-19 positive male or female subjects in the age range of 18-65 years, within seven days of the onset of mild to moderate symptoms of viral infection, already admitted in the hospital.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Edentulous patients, patients with low Glasgow coma score, intubated, immune-compromised, history of radiotherapy or chemotherapy will be excluded. Patients with known pre-existing chronic mucosal lesions such as lichen planus will also be excluded.