US president Donald Trump has been used to protect against the novel Corona virus determined to take hydroxychloroquine preventively, Brazil recommends that Malaria drug to treat even mild Covid-19 cases. A new study warns of serious side effects, prompting the WHO suspended the clinical tests for the time being. An overview of the state of knowledge:
What is hydroxychloroquine?
Chloroquine is an inexpensive drug that has been used against malaria for decades. Depending on the country and manufacturer, it is sold under different names, for example Resochin or Nivaquine. Hydroxychloroquine is a related, better tolerated drug, with trade names like Quensyl or Plaquenil. In addition to malaria, hydroxychloroquine is also used for rheumatic diseases such as lupus. Hydroxychloroquine was primarily tested for the treatment of Covid-19.
Does the drug work against Covid-19?
In the laboratory and in animal experiments, hydroxychloroquine has been shown to be effective against viruses in some cases. This is the basis for the hypothesis that it is also the new one Corona virus could kill. This has been successful in laboratory tests, but clinical studies on patients sometimes have conflicting results. None of the previous studies meet the usual research standards, according to which the test subjects are randomly selected and there is a control group to which placebos are administered. Neither are so-called double-blind studies in which neither doctors nor patients know who belongs to which group. The standard also includes independent scientists reviewing and evaluating a study before it is published in a journal.
What studies are there?
The French virologist Didier Raoult has published several studies that, according to him, prove the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine in combination with an antibiotic. He propagates widespread use against Covid-19 from the first symptoms. In his third study with more than 1,000 patients posed Raoult according to its own statements, that after ten days more than 90 percent virus had successfully fought. But this result is comparable to the natural course of the disease, and the mortality rate was the same.
A study in New York hospitals published earlier this month in The New England Journal of Medicine found that hydroxychloroquine neither improved nor significantly worsened the condition of seriously ill people. A Chinese and French study recently tested hydroxychloroquine in Covid 19 patients hospitalized with pneumonia. The risk of having to be resuscitated or dying was therefore not significantly reduced by the administration of the agent.
A research team from Harvard Medical School in Boston and the university hospital Zurich published last Friday in the trade magazine “The Lancet“A study that evaluated data from 96,000 patients in hundreds of hospitals around the world. The clinicians concluded that hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine were of no benefit with Covid-19. Rather, the data indicated an increased risk of death. The drugs According to the study, they can cause serious side effects such as irregular heartbeat.
Hydroxychloroquine is also currently being researched as part of “Discovery”, a large-scale European research series on potential agents against SARS-CoV-2. Because there is a shortage of patients treated with hydroxychloroquine, it may take some time before results are available.
What are the side effects?
Especially chloroquine, but also hydroxychloroquine, can sometimes cause serious side effects. These include nausea, vomiting, rashes, but also neurological, cardiological and visual disturbances can occur. That’s why European Medicines Agency the use against Covid-19 only for “clinical trials and emergency programs” under strict conditions for justifiable.
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