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Since the beginning of the year, the deadly coronavirus pandemic, better known as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), brought the entire world to an unprecedented halt. In tandem with the global scenario, researchers in India are actively engaged in the conduct of clinical research to counter the pandemic. This review attempts to provide a comprehensive overview of the COVID-19 research in India including design aspects, through the clinical trials registered in the Clinical Trials Registry - India (CTRI) till June 5, 2020. One hundred and twenty two registered trials on COVID-19 were extracted from the CTRI database. These trials were categorized into modern medicine (n=42), traditional medicine (n=67) and miscellaneous (n=13). Of the 42 modern medicine trials, 28 were on repurposed drugs, used singly (n=24) or in combination (n=4). Of these 28 trials, 23 were to evaluate their therapeutic efficacy in different severities of the disease. There were nine registered trials on cell- and plasma-based therapies, two phytopharmaceutical trials and three vaccine trials. The traditional medicine trials category majorly comprised Ayurveda (n=45), followed by homeopathy (n=14) and others (n=8) from Yoga, Siddha and Unani. Among the traditional medicine category, 31 trials were prophylactic and 36 were therapeutic, mostly conducted on asymptomatic or mild-to-moderate COVID-19 patients. This review would showcase the research being conducted on COVID-19 in the country and highlight the research gaps to steer further studies.

Background & objectives: The National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) and the ICMR-National Institute of Medical Statistics, the nodal agency for conducting HIV estimations in India, have been generating HIV estimates regularly since 2003. The objective of this study was to describe India's biennial HIV estimation 2017 process, data inputs, tool, methodology and epidemiological assumptions used to generate the HIV estimates and trends of key indicators for 2010-2017 at national and State/Union Territory levels. Methods: Demographic Projection (DemProj) and AIDS Impact Modules (AIM) of Spectrum 5.63 software recommended by the United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS Global Reference Group on HIV Estimates, Modelling and Projections, were used for generating HIV estimations on key indicators. HIV sentinel surveillance, epidemiological and programme data were entered into Estimation Projection Package (EPP), and curve fitting was done using EPP classic model. Finally, calibration was done using the State HIV prevalence of two rounds of National Family Health Survey (NFHS) -3 and -4 and Integrated Biological and Behavioural Surveillance (IBBS), 2014-2015. Results: The national adult prevalence of HIV was estimated to be 0.22 per cent in 2017. Mizoram, Manipur and Nagaland had the highest prevalence over one per cent. An estimated 2.1 million people were living with HIV in 2017, with Maharashtra estimated to have the highest number. Of the 88 thousand annual new HIV infections estimated nationally in 2017, Telangana accounted for the largest share. HIV incidence was found to be higher among key population groups, especially people who inject drugs. The annual AIDS-related deaths were estimated to be 69 thousand nationally. For all indicators, geographic variation in levels and trends between States existed. Interpretation & conclusions: With a slow decline in annual new HIV infections by only 27 per cent from 2010 to 2017 against the national target of 75 per cent by 2020, the national target to end AIDS by 2030 may be missed; although at the sub-national level some States have made better progress to reduce new HIV infection. It calls for reinforcement of HIV prevention, diagnosis and treatment efforts by geographical regions and population groups.

Introduction: WHO's International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) has 17 primary registries that collect the information on the minimum set of items of trial information that appear in the register and these registries are also endorsed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Objective: The objective of this study is to describe the profile of all the primary registries including Clinical Trial Registry-India (CTRI), through features such as magnitude, domain of registration, flagging, audit trail, language, mandatory requirements, and result disclosure. Methodology: The profiling of all registries was based on countries and zones, year of establishment, registrant, flagging, conflict of interest, language, documents, result disclosure, type of study, mode of registration, mandate of registration, quality check method, individual patient data statement and translation of content facility. The mode of search used was online which included advanced search, basic search and also from the audio/video manual on their website. Results: There are 17 primary registries of ICTRP, the first one International Standard Randomised Controlled Trial Number (ISRCTN) of England being initiated in year 2000 and the most recent being Lebanese registry, in September 2019. The trials registered with these registries range from 301 in Cuba to 53972 in European union's EU Clinical Trials Register. The primary registries in WHO registry network are diverse in functionalities and practices. The characteristics of online registers vary in content and features and to achieve coordinated level of data quality, across all the different registries and to keep a balance in standards of the data collected and validation of that data, the registries are adhering to the minimum data set items laid down by ICTRP. Conclusion: The very process of registering the clinical studies helps in promoting the research methods and also raising the standards of research, especially among young researchers. It also helps in reducing the duplicity of research.