Article content continued

Tardif is leading a national trial, assembled with lightning speed, that’s testing whether the gout drug colchicine can quell that perfect storm.

The drug has been used for centuries. A few tablets can treat gout, a painful inflammatory disease, rapidly. The joints become less swollen, less red, less warm, Tardif said.

Researchers hope to recruit 6,000 people who test positive for COVID-19. The trial is open to people 40 and older who haven’t been hospitalized and who would be willing to take the drug or a placebo daily for 30 days. People can contact their doctor or call a toll-free line at 1-877-536-6837. (Women who are not on birth control, women who are pregnant and women who are breastfeeding aren’t eligible.)

We need to act early before the complication occurs. That’s ultimately our goal,

It’s a placebo-controlled, randomized trial, meaning anyone who joins will have a 50 per cent chance of getting the drug and a 50 per cent chance of getting a placebo. The full study will take more than 30 days but initial results will be available a few days after the 30-days of followup.

“We want to provide an answer as quickly as possible,” Tardif says. “If we were able to detect a significant benefit, it is not inconceivable the study could be stopped prematurely to rapidly inform populations.

“But obviously we need to show first that it works.”

There are a number of theories why it might.

One of the common denominators between the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, in which upwards of 50 million people died, and the COVID-19 pandemic is that children rarely get severe complications, Tardif said.