Background: The rst case of a corona virus 2019 (COVID-19) infection in a Sri Lankan was reported on March 11, 2020. The situation in Sri Lanka changed with the rapid increase of personnel contracting COVID-19 in a Naval base camp that housed more than 4000 people. This provided a unique opportunity to study the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) for post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), while taking stringent, non-pharmacologic, public health measures to prevent spread. Our aim is to study the effectiveness and safety of HCQ for PEP among naval personnel with exposure to COVID-19 positive patients. Methods/design: This is a placebo-controlled, randomized, clinical trial carried out in the Naval base camp and quarantine centers of the Sri Lanka Navy, Ministry of Defense, Sri Lanka. Navy personnel who are exposed to a patient with con rmed COVID-19 infection but test negative for the virus on reverse, real-time polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR) at recruitment will be randomized, 200 to each arm, to receive HCQ or placebo, and monitored for the development of symptoms or rRT-PCR positivity for severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus for 14 days. Discussion: This trial will provide high-quality evidence of the effectiveness and safety of HCQ as PEP for COVID-19. The study design is unique due to the circumstances of the outbreak in a con ned area among otherwise healthy adults, at a relatively early stage of its spread.

The JUNO experiment locates in Jinji town, Kaiping city, Jiangmen city, Guangdong province. The geographic location is east longitude 112 • 31'05' and North latitude 22 • 07'05'. The experimental site is 43 km to the southwest of the Kaiping city, a county-level city in the prefecture-level city Jiangmen in Guangdong province. There are five big cities, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Macau, Shenzhen, and Zhuhai, all in ∼200 km drive distance, as shown in figure 3.

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