UK's Oxford University said on 18 February 2021 that the RECOVERY trail, a major UK trial of potential COVID-19 treatments, has started to enrol patients in other countries in the hope of speeding up results, CNN reported on Thursday.

The RECOVERY trial, considered by the UK government at its launch as the world's largest randomised clinical trial, looks at whether existing drugs can be used to treat COVID-19.

Since March 2020, the trial has enrolled over 36,000 hospital patients in the UK and is now expanding to countries, including Indonesia and Nepal.

Peter Horby, professor of Emerging Infectious Diseases and Global Health at Oxford University, said he hoped that expanding the trial internationally would enable researchers to assess potential treatments more quickly, adding that it is particularly important to find readily and affordable treatments for COVID-19 that can be used worldwide.

Reportedly, this trial has tested a number of drugs to determine which work against COVID-19 and which don't.

In 2020, the trial's researchers found that the cheap steroid dexamethasone reduced the risk of death for the sickest COVID-19 patients, while the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine was of no benefit.

Also, the trial released preliminary results last week that showed that the rheumatoid arthritis drug tocilizumab could also save the lives of patients hospitalised with severe COVID-19.

These results were shared in a preprint, but have not yet been peer-reviewed or published in a medical journal.

Reportedly, in Indonesia and Nepal, the RECOVERY trial will initially focus on aspirin and colchicine, a drug for gout.