EDINBURG — DHR Health unveiled a new mobile research unit that will allow it to conduct four different clinical trials intended to help Rio Grande Valley residents fight COVID-19 and treat the chronic health complications it causes.
The hospital unveiled the new 437-square-foot space Thursday and features three exam rooms and a lobby inside. Located in the parking lot behind the DHR Health Rehabilitation Hospital, the unit will house a nurse practitioner, research nurse coordinator, and a driver/coordinator.
Hospital administrators hope the new unit will help researchers enroll thousands of patients and volunteers in large clinical trials, testing a variety of investigational vaccines, monoclonal antibodies, and drugs intended to protect people from COVID-19.
“What is our goal: It’s to keep people healthy, to keep people out of the hospital and to try and prevent them from actually getting severe COVID-19 disease,” Executive Vice President of Research Dr. Sohail Rao said.
Rao participated in a ribbon cutting ceremony Thursday morning in Edinburg where he was joined by DHR Health CEO Dr. Manish Singh, Dr. Marissa Gomez-Martinez and Marcy Martinez, director of corporate communications.
The celebration also marked the one-year anniversary of the first diagnosed case of COVID-19 in the Rio Grande Valley, Rao said.
Physicians noted that even after a year of living with the current pandemic, there still isn’t an FDA-approved treatment for COVID-19 yet.
DHR Health, which partnered with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to establish the new unit, hopes that through its partnerships with NIH and other commercial partners, it can usher in an innovative treatment for the community that can prevent those affected from developing serious health conditions caused by the disease.
Rao described the actual infection of the disease as “acute,” but said there are chronic complications to be concerned about, including issues with the cardiovascular and renal systems, and side effects, such as chronic coughing, long periods of fatigue and sudden behavioral changes.
“We will, at the present time, have four clinical trials that we are going to conduct in this particular mobile research unit,” Rao said. “Two of those are to test very unique monoclonal antibodies which actually prevent the binding of the virus to its receptor, which causes the pathology that you’ll see.”
One of these tests is in pill form that the patient will consume for 14 days in order to prevent the disease from causing any bodily harm.
Rao also said the unit will be part of a vaccine trial for children, using both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines.
And in order to reach patients in need, DHR Health contracted with a transportation company that will pick up and drop off patients as far as 30 to 50 miles away.
“We are doing everything possible to make it easier for you and your family members and our patients to get involved and benefit from the research that we will be doing for the future of this virus,” Rao said.
Gomez-Martinez, who noted the Valley has double the mortality rate when compared with the rest of the country due to the comorbidities prevalent here, said she is witnessing the long-term effects of the disease at her clinic.
“It really does not discriminate,” she said. “All age groups still have chronic complications from COVID-19 … and having research here, being able to offer this to our community is just such a blessing. Had we had this a year ago, how many lives could we have saved?”
Despite the high hopes, Dr. Singh continued to warn that the fight for normalcy even after vaccinations is still not over.
“One thing I will remind everybody, as a physician, this disease is not over yet,” Singh said. “People are getting vaccinated, but we still have to maintain all the precautions we have been doing for the last year until there are zero patients in the hospital.”
Currently there are 11 new variants of the coronavirus that have been discovered and spreading in the U.S.
