Trump takes it: what is hydroxychloroquine and does it protect against coronavirus

U.S. President Donald Trump said at a White House briefing that he began taking prophylactic anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine, despite claims by the World Health Organization that there is no convincing evidence of the effectiveness of this drug in controlling coronavirus. Writes about it with the BBC.

Photo: Shutterstock

Moreover, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a recommendation in April that there was no evidence of the safety and effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine in controlling coronavirus.

Regarding the prevention of Covid-19 disease with this drug, there is currently no convincing evidence that hydroxychloroquine or similar drugs can prevent coronavirus infection, although clinical trials in this direction are being conducted in a number of countries, in particular in the USA, Great Britain, Spain and China.

What is hydroxychloroquine and what is it used for?

Hydroxychloroquine is a later and less toxic version of the drug chloroquine and has more pronounced antiviral and anti-inflammatory effects.

Chloroquine is usually prescribed for the treatment of malaria, certain protozoal infections, rheumatoid arthritis, and lupus erythematosus.

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Both of these drugs have cardiotoxicity and can cause arrhythmias and tachycardia, especially in patients with existing cardiovascular disease, which the FDA has previously warned about when these two drugs were used to treat Covid-19 in outpatient settings or during clinical trials.

According to one clinical test conducted in the USA on 368 patients of the Veteran Hospital, the mortality rate in those Covid-19 patients who took hydroxychloroquine was higher than in those who received standard treatment.

Professor Catherine Seli-Radtke, vice president of the International Society for Research in Antiviral Drugs, also believes that chloroquine is given too much attention in the absence of evidence of its effectiveness in Covid-19.

“More importantly, it can have dangerous side effects and give people false hope,” the professor wrote.

Why are anti-malarials used in some countries to treat Covid-19?

Since the SARS-Cov-2 strain of coronavirus that causes Covid-19 has recently appeared, it is new and poorly understood, so far there is no single approved drug that would help the patient's body cope with the complications caused by it.

Therefore, doctors around the world in such situations may resort to the practice of using some of the available drugs outside the registered indications, that is, not for their intended purpose.

Is hydroxychloroquine used in Russia with Covid-19?

In the temporary recommendations of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of Covid-19, anti-malarial drugs are indicated as promising.

“Among the drugs that seem promising for the treatment of COVID-19, a group of antimalarials should be noted: chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine, mefloquine. These drugs are used to treat malaria and some other protozoal infections,” the recommendations say.

It also indicates that the mechanism of action of antimalarial drugs for viral infections has not been fully studied, however, there is reason to believe that they can impede the penetration of the virus into the cell and its replication.

“In small clinical studies, it has been shown that the combination of [the antibiotic] ​​azithromycin with hydroxychloroquine enhances the antiviral effect of the latter,” says the Ministry of Health guidelines.

At the same time, it also contains a warning that before prescribing anti-malarial therapy, special attention should be paid to the patient's ECG, since chloroquine and its derivatives can affect QT prolongation (cause ventricular tachyarrhythmia).

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At the end of April, the head of the Moscow Ambulance, Nikolai Plavunov, who fell ill with Covid-19, confirmed that he was treated with hydroxychloroquine in combination with antibiotics.

“I first took azithromycin, then pneumonia started, and I added levofloxacin. I dealt with this quite effectively,” the doctor noted in this interview.

He also admitted that there is a prevention system among Russian doctors, and to the question “Also with hydroxychloroquine?” replied: “Including, yes. It’s clear that the workers have somehow already realized this; there are no longer any refusals from prevention.”

The Ministry of Health’s guidelines also state that, in a pandemic, drug prophylaxis with chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine and mefloquine is carried out in several countries.

As for Russia, such prophylaxis is recommended only to certain groups of the population in two cases: in case of postexposure prophylaxis after a single contact with a confirmed case of COVID-19 and for prophylaxis in persons who are in the focus of infection.

In which other countries are Covid-19 antimalarial drugs permitted?

In the USA, at the end of March, the FDA approved the use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine for the treatment of Covid-19 in limited cases in a hospital setting as an emergency measure.

In France, doctors are also allowed to prescribe these drugs to patients with coronavirus.

In India, the use of hydroxychloroquine for prophylaxis is recommended for healthcare workers, as well as those who come in contact with infected coronavirus and have received a prescription from their doctor.

A number of countries in the Middle East, such as Bahrain, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, are authorized to use these drugs or are undergoing clinical trials.

At the same time, experts all over the world warn against the self-appointment and uncontrolled use of antimalarial drugs, emphasizing that they should be used only as an experimental medicine and only in emergency cases.

As ForumDaily wrote earlier:

• Trump said at a briefing at the White House that recently he had recently been asked to prevent coronavirus infection. started taking hydroxychloroquinewhich, experts warn, may be unsafe.

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The tests do not end: what awaits those who were seriously ill with COVID-19, after being discharged from the hospital

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