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This national clinical trial aims to identify treatments that may be beneficial for adults hospitalised with confirmed COVID-19

Peter Horby, Professor of Emerging Infectious Diseases and Global Health

A range of potential treatments have been suggested for COVID-19 but nobody knows if any of them will turn out to be more effective in helping people recover than the usual standard of hospital care which all patients will receive. The RECOVERY Trial will begin by testing some of these suggested treatments: 

  • Lopinavir-Ritonavir (commonly used to treat HIV)
  • Low-dose Dexamethasone (a type of steroid, which is used in a range of conditions typically to reduce inflammation).
  • Hydroxychloroquine (related to an anti-malarial drug)
  • Inhaled interferon-beta1a (an antiviral drug; not currently in use in this trial)

Data from the trial will be regularly reviewed so that any effective treatment can be identified quickly and made available to all patients. The RECOVERY Trial team will constantly review information on new drugs and include promising ones in the trial.


Letter from the Chief Medical Officers

The Chief Medical Officers of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and the NHS Medical Director, have written a letter to all doctors strongly encouraging participation in the national randomised trials in COVID-19 of which RECOVERY is one. Please click on the link below to read the letter and pass it on to your colleagues.

The importance of COVID-19 clinical trials


The RECOVERY Trial is registered at ISRCTN50189673 
EU Clinical Trials Register: EudraCT 2020-001113-21

Navigating this site

All study documents (including the Participant Information Sheet and Consent form, and those required by R&D departments and pharmacists) can be downloaded from the For Site Staff area of the site.

All documents and access to the Randomisation Program for sites that will take part in the trial post-training, can be accessed on the Randomisation page.

The study protocol can be freely downloaded here.