The team of researchers have revealed they will soon begin clinical trials with SNG001. The Southampton-based-researchers received the green light yesterday to begin Phase II human trials of a drug that could help hospital patients fight off infection.  This could be as early as next week.

The drug was originally developed to prevent severe lower respiratory tract illness caused by cold and flu infections when they spread to the lungs.

Current treatment for the disease aims to relieve the symptoms while your body fights the illness.

Advice from the NHS says that people should take paracetamol to relieve symptoms, unless they have been told by doctors not to.

The new trial will involve 100 patients at Southampton and up to ten other NHS hospitals.

Professor Tom Wilkinson, who is leading the trial said: “The science definitely adds up.

“We’re learning a lot about the pandemic every day.

“But that’s why we need to do this study, to understand whether the drug does work.”

Participants will receive the current Covid-19 care, while inhaling either a placebo or SNG001 – a special formulation of the naturally occurring antiviral protein interferon beta 1a (IFN-beta) – for 14 days.

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However, the news that trials will begin does not mean a vaccine is imminent as the professor warned this could be some time away.

Professor Wilkinson added: “Covid-19 is presenting a major challenge to vulnerable patients, the health service and wider society.

“While a vaccine will be key, that could be some time away.

“Right now we need effective frontline treatments to give doctors the tools to treat the most vulnerable and to help patients recover quickly as the pressure on health systems mounts.”

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The news comes after Prime Minister Boris Johnson made an urgent plea to former NHS workers to return to their duties in a national recruitment drive.

More than 65,000 former nurses and doctors will be told “Your NHS Needs You” as part of a national recruitment drive.

The drive has been launched in an effort to defeat the coronavirus outbreak.

In an unprecedented call-to-arms, NHS England will survey those who have recently left the health service on what type of role they could take on either through NHS 111 or face-to-face.

Staff will be asked to “opt in” to a register to fill a range of clinical and non-clinical roles across the NHS based on their skills and time away from practice.

Those who join the “NHS army” will be given a full induction and online training to help them begin their fight against the pandemic.

There are currently over 3,000 cases of the coronavirus in the UK with numbers rising day-by-day.

Mr Johnson recently took time to thank NHS staff on Twitter.

In the tweet the prime minister told NHS staff of “every specialism and role” the UK needs them to return.

He said: “We’ve never needed you more than we do today.”

He said: “We’ve never needed you more than we do today.”

England’s top nurse and top doctor have now called on colleagues who left the health service in recent years to re-register today in a bid to tackle the “greatest global health threat” in a century.

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