Perfil das pesquisas clínicas relacionadas ao Covid-19 no Brasil / Profile of clinical research relating to COVID-19 in Brazil

Abstract

INTRODUCTION. In December 2019, cases of pneumonia begin do appear in Wuhan, China, from a pathogen named coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The main target of SARS-CoV-2 is the upper and lower respiratory tract. According to World Health Organization (WHO), the American continent was considered the epicenter of the disease, with Brazil occupying the third place in the list of countries with the highest number of cases. Therefore, identifying the profile of clinical research related to COVID-19 in Brazil has become important. OBJECTIVE. This study sought to identify the profile of clinical research related to COVID-19 in Brazil and discuss the challenges involved in this process. METHODS. Active research was performed in the database Plataforma Brasil for clinical research related to COVID-19 in Brazil and registered in this platform during the period January 01^st 2020 until March 31^st, 2021. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION. In Brazil, the regions with the greatest research infrastructure and assistance are the South and Southeast regions, that have the predominance of clinical research in the country, both related to COVID-19 and to other therapeutic areas. These are the places that have the largest number of clinical research sites and also the best universities. Moreover, the prevalence of participation by public universities indicates these institutions as a research hub in Brazil. Although most clinical research in Brazil concentrates in the South and Southeast regions, it is interesting to observe that the Northeast region appeared in second place in the number of studies involving COVID-19, with approximately 100 more studies than in the South region during the researched period. This difference can be explained by the fact that the Northeast region was more affected by the new coronavirus than the South region, which would encourage scientists in this region to perform more research to help the local population. The elderly is part of the group at highest risk to contract COVID-19 because they are more fragile due to the age and because they usually have several comorbidities. However, the low number of clinical research related to this population probably is due to the risks presented by them, the quantity of concomitant medications and by possible drug interactions. On the other hand, the opposite was found when we analyze the research involving the pediatric population, where, although this population is considered equally vulnerable for clinical research and there were few cases of children and teenagers who contracted the new coronavirus, the number of research in this population overcame the one found with the elderly. CONCLUSION. According to the data found, the profile of clinical research related to COVID-19 in Brazil is compound mostly by observational studies, single-center, involving adult population and conducted in public institution in the Southeast region of the country. Despite CEP/CONEP system and ANVISA had adapt their process very well to reduce with excellence the deadlines and prioritize the new coronavirus studies, the country, at first, was not chosen by the multinational to conduct international interventional studies, even belonging to the region considered as the epicenter of the disease. During this period, there were positive actions and great advances in the efforts of regulatory institutions to speed up the approval of clinical research involving COVID-19 and it can also stand out Brazil’s scientific potential which, during a pandemic with an unknown virus, developed 2706 research related to the COVID-19 in addition to continuing perform other clinical research in different therapeutic areas.