GPs are upset about a letter asking for treatment with the controversial drug hydroxychloroquine, an old anti-malaria drug. In the letter, which was prepared in advance by a general practitioner from Limburg, the patients ask their doctor to administer the drug if they become infected with the corona virus, reports NRC. According to the newspaper, the letter surfaced at GPs in Rotterdam and West Brabant, among others.
The drug was administered to patients with the corona virus at the start of the corona crisis. Later it turned out that it had no effect and it was removed from the Dutch treatment advice. The Limburg doctor tells NRC that he is convinced of the effect.
“In the spring I had several patients who died of covid-19. Then I started prescribing hydroxychloroquine and 10 patients in a row recovered from the virus. That cannot be a coincidence,” he says in the newspaper.
Medium does not work
The scientific association of general practitioners, the Nederlands Huisartsen Genootschap, says it has no signs that many general practitioners have received the letter. According to Jako Burgers of the society, it also makes no sense to use hydroxychloroquine.
“We have done a literature search on the effect of hydroxychloroquine when prescribed by general practitioners, and no evidence has been found that it works,” Burgers told NOS. “Prescribing the drug is not recommended. It is also no longer used in hospitals. There is now worldwide consensus about this. The drug was promising, but we are now quite sure that it does not work.”
Guidelines
He points out that the drug can also cause serious side effects, such as problems with heart rhythm. “The credo ‘if it doesn’t work, it won’t hurt’ does not apply in this case,” says Burgers. The Limburg doctor suggests in the letter that it is not prohibited to provide the drug, because GPs are free to deviate from the applicable guidelines.
“In this case, I cannot give a reason why you would deviate from guidelines,” says Burgers of the family doctor association. “You may prescribe a product for which there is no registered indication, provided there are valid arguments for it, for example a guideline that recommends it. There is no such guideline, in fact: there is a guideline that discourages it.”
People are, however, free to hand the letter to their GP. “People often come up with information from the Internet and we hope that the GP will take a good look at the file of the Dutch College of General Practitioners”, says Burgers. “And we advise patients to look at the Thuisarts.nl site, which contains reliable advice on covid-19 and self-care.”
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