If using Heparin nose spray will stop the spread of COVID-19 in your household and if Heparin will make you less sick and recover faster from COVID-19.

The trial is a double-blind randomized placebo-controlled trial.

This means that during the trial, no one will know which participants are getting the heparin and which are getting a non-active medicine (a placebo of salt water).

This is called a double-blind trial. It helps to make sure that the results of the trial are fair and unbiased. Even the researchers conducting the study won't know who is getting the heparin and who is getting the placebo.

All members of the same household who participate in the trial will receive the same treatment.

Up to 400 families will be enrolled in the study and up to 1100 individual trial participant overall.

You will need to provide consent to join the study.

You will be given a nose spray. This may be salt water (placebo) or Heparin spray but neither you or the study team will know which one you get. You will need to use the nose spray three times a day for 10 days.

You will also need to do a nose swab by yourself. They are similar to Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs), but easier. These will be provided for free.

A nurse will also come to your home and do PCR tests on certain days.

You will be required to do a survey of symptoms for 10 days.

Our study team will then keep in touch with you over the course of 12 months to see how you are going and to see if you experience long-COVID symptoms.

Heparin is a common drug that used to treat heart attacks, strokes and blood clots.

In this study you will use Heparin as a nose spray (like a hayfever spray you may have used before).

When administered via the nose, Heparin is not absorbed into the body, therefore is extremely safe and should block COVID-19 infection in the nose from occurring.

Your data is safely stored on a server in Australia, in a format that cannot be linked directly to your identity.

Your data will only be used for the purposes of the research and will not be shared with anyone else.

The de-identified data is held for 7 years in accordance with statutory requirements for the conduct of clinical research trials in Australia.

If the trial is a success and works well and is safe, people could use it to help prevent getting sick from COVID-19.

Heparin self-administered via the nasal spray three times per day, including for example, prior to and following potential exposure in public places, crowded venues, public transport and airline travel, may provide a degree of protection against COVID-19 infection.

The team working on this project includes doctors who specialize in taking care of people with COVID-19 at Northern Hospital, as well as experts in blood disorders and clinical trials from The Murdoch Children's Research Institute.

They also have experts in medicine and pharmacy from The Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Science and The University of Melbourne Department of Pharmacology, and virus experts from the Peter Doherty Institute.

All of the leaders of the research team are certified to conduct clinical research trials, which means they have been trained to follow all the rules and regulations for conducting safe and ethical research, according to the standards set by their institutions.

The Victorian Government is funding the study.

The INHERIT trial has the approval to proceed under the auspices of the Human Research Ethics Committee from St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne, and a Site-Specific Agreement with the Northern Hospital.

The IINHERIT trial is registered on the clinicaltrials.gov website (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT05204550).

• Intranasal Heparin Treatment to Reduce Transmission Among Household Contacts of COVID-19 Positive Adults and Children (INHERIT), clinicaltrials.gov

For further information about the conduct of the trial, please contact: [email protected] or SMS or call 0481 983 452