The FDA's new app for frontline doctors could help discover Covid-19 treatments faster

The FDA's new app for frontline doctors could help discover Covid-19 treatments fasterIn the trenches of the fight against coronavirus, Dr. Raghav Tirupathi often has little time to think and no textbook to follow while treating patients with Covid-19.

That's why the infectious disease specialist in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, finds himself increasingly turning for guidance to Cure ID, an app developed by the US Food and Drug Administration enabling doctors to consult with each other across hospitals, academic disciplines and international borders.

He uses many of the established treatments -- the antiviral drug remdesivir, the corticosteroid dexamethasone and convalescent plasma. But in the minutiae of a patient's given situation and with treatment guidelines regularly updated, the Cure ID app is vital for him to compare notes with other doctors about which drugs to administer, and in what order.

"Things happen quickly and we can't afford to think about phases," said Tirupathi, who practices in a rural community hospital. "They reassure me that I'm not the only one doing it. We use Cure to justify what we are doing in our institution."

He's one of thousands of doctors sharing information via an app the US government agency hopes will spur new cures for hundreds of difficult-to-treat diseases.

The app wasn't designed for a pandemic, but it's just in time for one.

Launched by the FDA in December 2019, the app has enabled doctors to write and submit anonymized case reports about their patients in just minutes for 325 distinct diseases.

After downloading it from Apple's App Store or Google Play, users confirm they are licensed health professionals. Then they can view case reports organized by disease, create their own reports and engage with the medical community via the app's community forum.

Cure ID was originally developed to aid in repurposing old drugs for new uses, according to Heather Stone, the app project lead and a health science policy analyst at the FDA.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/09/health/fda-cure-id-app-wellness/index.html

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