This is no more conclusive than the anecdotal evidence that it helps, but these studies should at least give some people pause before they start handing this drug out like candy to anyone who tests positive for COVID-19.
Scientists around the world are continuing to study two drugs — chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine — for their potential as possible treatment approaches for illness caused by the novel coronavirus. Yet as new data emerge out of such research, so do some concerns about the efficacy and safety of the drugs when used to treat Covid-19.
There have been early indications that these drugs may be effective in treating or preventing Covid-19, but the medications haven’t endured the due diligence of extensive clinical trials and there have been growing concerns about the impact chloroquine and the closely related hydroxychloroquine can have specifically on the heart.
Now, a chloroquine trial in Brazil has been cut short, hospitals in Sweden have been cautioned against using the drugs for Covid-19 and American cardiology groups have urged doctors to be aware of “potential serious implications” when used for people with existing cardiovascular disease.
The “safety profile” for chloroquine may differ from hydroxychloroquine overall but when it comes to the heart, there is no reason why one would be safer than another, said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center and an attending physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
Currently, there is no treatment for Covid-19 approved by the US Food and Drug Administration — but the agency has issued an emergency use authorization for chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine to treat patients hospitalized with Covid-19.
“In a better world, if we weren’t so panicked about this virus, we would wait and see if this drug had some value other than the President declaring that it has some value,” Offit said. “If someone’s sick you can still hurt them.”
The medical and research community are really taking the potential of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine seriously,” Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization’s Health Emergencies Programme, said during a media briefing in Geneva on Monday.Currently, “there is no evidence from randomized control trials that it works and clinicians have also been cautioned to look out for side effects of the drug to ensure that first we do no harm,” Ryan said. “We eagerly await the outcome of the trials that are underway.”
A preliminary study out of Brazil on the use of chloroquine diphosophate to treat patients with Covid-19 symptoms ended early after several patients died and researchers found that a high dose of the drug was associated with a severe type of arrhythmia, or irregular heartbeat. […]
Hospitals in Sweden have received guidance directing clinicians not to use chloroquine to treat Covid-19 patients outside of clinical trials. Magnus Gisslén, professor and senior doctor at the Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg, Sweden, told CNN last week that the guidance also applies to the related medication, hydroxychloroquine.
The guidance states that “considering the very low evidence of any significant effect on Covid-19 and since serious side effects can’t be ruled out, the use of chloroquine outside of clinical trials is not recommended.””We stopped using it a few weeks ago after only a very limited use,” Gisslén said. “We have recommended it to all hospitals in our region to stop using it. I think almost all hospitals in the country have now stopped using it.”This medicine has no effect that we have been able to see on the treatment of Covid-19.”
Gisslén and his colleagues have seen “a serious effect on the heart” linked to using the medication, he said. He added that patients with lower kidney function also had a difficult time taking the drug.The patients most at risk are those with pre-existing conditions in the heart, Gisslén said. “Those are often the older patients,” he said. “But if you get a too high dosage it can affect people who have no underlying conditions at all.”
There are people I see on TV who were given the drug and recovered. But, of course, they don’t really know if they would have recovered anyway. They were also given Tylenol and a bunch of other stuff that could just as easily be attributed to their recovery. That’s part of what we’re seeing as anecdotal evidence and it’s completely worthless as far as proving the drug is useful.
There are a bunch of drugs being studied but we only hear about this one because Trump has decided it’s the magic cure/vaccine that will fix everything so we can all go back to normal. (He also has stars in his eyes, seeing himself as the Jonas Salk of coronavirus — that is if he knows who Jonas Salk is in the first place — who “discovered” the cure and saved the world.) It may end up being a treatment that helps. We just don’t know. But so far, there is absolutely no proof that it is despite Dr’s Ingraham, Hannity and Trump declaring that it’s a miracle.