Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has undertaken (a) research and (b) trials to investigate whether treatments for covid-19 can be used for pulmonary fibrosis.
The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) is the nation’s largest funder of health and social care research. In 2020/21 it awarded £696,932 for research into pulmonary fibrosis. Currently, the NIHR supports 122 studies into pulmonary fibrosis with two current COVID-19 related studies. One study is evaluating the safety and efficacy of Deupirfenidone in post-acute COVID-19 respiratory disease. The second is evaluating the efficacy and safety of Remdesivir treatment of COVID-19 in an outpatient setting.