President Donald Trump’s malaria drug, hydroxychloroquine
hope: ‘game changer’ or 'dangerous gamble'?
What the research shows about using hydroxychloroquine for Covid-19.
From the Oval Office to India’s top medical center, an old malaria drug is getting ever more billing as the world’s most immediate hope of an accessible treatment for coronavirus.
President Donald Trump has led the way as a champion of hydroxychloroquine, branding the drug a “game-changer” and inspiring boosterism on Fox News. India is recommending all its healthcare workers take the drug — which contains a synthetic form of the quinine that once made gin and tonic a popular antimalarial — and it is being tried out on a limited number of Covid-19 patients in Europe.
But in some experts say that is a dangerous gamble given a lack of proof about the drug’s efficacy and the danger of side-effects.
Rather than a calculated risk, Mr Trump’s salesmanship has fostered a view that the rush to hydroxychloroquine is the result of desperation to find a way out of the pandemic. Advertising the drug’s potential from the White House podium, the US president himself said: “What do you have to lose?”
If hydroxychloroquine does work for Covid-19, no one is sure how. A 2006 study on SARS gested it did not act as an antiviral that stops viruses from replicating, but some believe it may help treat patients by acting as an anti-inflammatory or helping the immune system fight the virus.
Magnus Gisslen, a professor at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, who is treating Covid-19 patients, said the hospital stopped using the drug a couple of weeks ago after hearing reports of significant side effects, which include those on a patient’s vision and heart. “Doctors are wrong to rush to treat people,” he said. “Evidence-based medicine is important.”
There have been reports around the world of overdoses of chloroquine, a related but more toxic drug, and while hydroxychloroquine is somewhat safer, the number of poisonings involving the drug doubled in the US in recent weeks, according to the American Association of Poison Control Centers.
In China the central government recommended chloroquine in early February, but then had to adjust the dose because of side effects. There is no official government guidance on hydroxychloroquine.
India has been less cautious, with a Covid-19 task force set up by the Indian Council of Medical Research recommending that it be taken by frontline healthcare workers likely to be exposed to coronavirus. India, the global leader in generics manufacturing, also banned exports of hydroxychloroquine and its active ingredient. The US federal government, meanwhile, has stockpiled 30m doses. Those moves have contributed to shortages in the US and Europe for people who need it for its proven purposes — not only for malaria, but also for treatment of the autoimmune diseases lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.
Source :-
1. Financial Times
2. CNN health
3. Washington Post
hope: ‘game changer’ or 'dangerous gamble'?
What the research shows about using hydroxychloroquine for Covid-19.
From the Oval Office to India’s top medical center, an old malaria drug is getting ever more billing as the world’s most immediate hope of an accessible treatment for coronavirus.
President Donald Trump has led the way as a champion of hydroxychloroquine, branding the drug a “game-changer” and inspiring boosterism on Fox News. India is recommending all its healthcare workers take the drug — which contains a synthetic form of the quinine that once made gin and tonic a popular antimalarial — and it is being tried out on a limited number of Covid-19 patients in Europe.
But in some experts say that is a dangerous gamble given a lack of proof about the drug’s efficacy and the danger of side-effects.
Rather than a calculated risk, Mr Trump’s salesmanship has fostered a view that the rush to hydroxychloroquine is the result of desperation to find a way out of the pandemic. Advertising the drug’s potential from the White House podium, the US president himself said: “What do you have to lose?”
If hydroxychloroquine does work for Covid-19, no one is sure how. A 2006 study on SARS gested it did not act as an antiviral that stops viruses from replicating, but some believe it may help treat patients by acting as an anti-inflammatory or helping the immune system fight the virus.
Magnus Gisslen, a professor at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, who is treating Covid-19 patients, said the hospital stopped using the drug a couple of weeks ago after hearing reports of significant side effects, which include those on a patient’s vision and heart. “Doctors are wrong to rush to treat people,” he said. “Evidence-based medicine is important.”
There have been reports around the world of overdoses of chloroquine, a related but more toxic drug, and while hydroxychloroquine is somewhat safer, the number of poisonings involving the drug doubled in the US in recent weeks, according to the American Association of Poison Control Centers.
In China the central government recommended chloroquine in early February, but then had to adjust the dose because of side effects. There is no official government guidance on hydroxychloroquine.
India has been less cautious, with a Covid-19 task force set up by the Indian Council of Medical Research recommending that it be taken by frontline healthcare workers likely to be exposed to coronavirus. India, the global leader in generics manufacturing, also banned exports of hydroxychloroquine and its active ingredient. The US federal government, meanwhile, has stockpiled 30m doses. Those moves have contributed to shortages in the US and Europe for people who need it for its proven purposes — not only for malaria, but also for treatment of the autoimmune diseases lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.
Source :-
1. Financial Times
2. CNN health
3. Washington Post
