Small studies find hydroxychloroquine ineffective in treating coronavirus

Courtesy Catherine Seri Radke, University of Maryland Baltimore County

On saturday Food and Drug Administration Approves Use of Two AntimalarialsHydroxychloroquine and a related drug, chloroquine, for emergency use to treat COVID-19. The drug was advertised by President Trump as a “game changer” For COVID-19.

However, Published research In a French medical journal, hydroxychloroquine has provided new evidence that the immune system does not seem to help remove coronavirus from the body. The survey continues with the other two. One is France, One in China -Several benefits were reported with the combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin in COVID-19 patients who did not have severe symptoms of the virus.

I am a drug chemist I have been specializing in the discovery and development of antiviral drugs for the past 30 years, and I have been actively working on the coronavirus for the past 7 years. I am one of many researchers concerned that the drug is too high priority before there is enough evidence to show that it is really effective.

There are already other clinical studies that have shown it COVID-19 has no effect As well So Some other Virus. And, more importantly, it can have dangerous side effects and give people false hope. The latter has resulted in a widespread deficiency of hydroxychloroquine for patients who need it to treat malaria, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, for which it was originally approved.

The idea that the combination of hydroxychloroquine and the antibiotic azithromycin is effective for COVID-19 was even more noticeable after a study published on March 17. Philippe Gaultre in Marseille, France. Although some of their results seemed promising, it should also be noted that most of their patients had only mild symptoms. In addition, 85% of the patients did not even have a fever. Since this is one of the major signs of the virus, it has been suggested that these patients were likely to have cleared the virus naturally without intervention.

Another study was posted on medRxivAlthough not yet peer-reviewed, a Chinese scientist at the People’s Hospital of Wuhan University in Wuhan, China, administered hydroxychloroquine to patients with mild infections without medical problems, similar to the Gautlet study. The results showed that 31 patients receiving the drug showed symptom relief 24 hours earlier than the control group. In addition, pneumonia symptoms improved in 25 of the 31 patients compared to 17 of 31 in the control group. As mentioned in some of the comments related to the manuscript, there are issues related to the translation of the article, and some interpretations of the results are cloudy. It also seems to focus more on pneumonia than COVID-19. However, these issues may or may not be resolved once the dissertation has been reviewed.

However, the results of the other two studies are inconsistent.

A second French group, led by Jean-Michel Molina, is currently testing a combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin in 11 patients at Hôpital Saint-Louis in Paris, France. The results were significantly different.

Like the Marseille study, the Molina trial was a small pilot study. Molina and colleagues used the same regimen as Gautret. However, in contrast, in the Goutre study, 8 of 11 patients had basic health, 10 of 11 had fever, and were quite ill at the start of treatment.

These Paris researchers said that after 5-6 days of treatment with hydroxychloroquine (600 mg per day for 10 days) and azithromycin (500 mg per day, 250 mg for 2-5 days), 10 Eight of the patients still have COVID19. Of these ten patients, one died, two were transferred to the ICU, and the other was excluded from treatment due to serious complications.

in addition, Similar research in China In addition, there was no difference in viral clearance after 7 days with and without hydroxychloroquine in study patients. This supports Molina’s findings.

Thus, despite the recent approval of this drug for use against COVID-19, questions remain regarding the efficacy of this treatment. As Molina and colleagues point out: “Continuous randomized clinical trials with hydroxychloroquine will provide a definitive answer as to the claimed efficacy of this combination and will evaluate its safety. “

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Catherine Seri Radke, Professor of Chemical Chemistry, President of International Association for Antiviral Research University of Maryland Baltimore County

This article was republished from conversation Under Creative Commons license. Read Original work.