In the USA, they no longer treat COVID-19 with hydroxychloroquine: millions of doses are stuck in warehouses

After the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) revoked permission for the treatment of coronavirus infection with hydroxychloroquine, the Federal Government was faced with the fact that 63 million unused doses remained in state warehouses, writes CNN.

Photo: Shutterstock

The government began to accumulate donor hydroxychloroquine in late March after President Trump called it “very encouraging,” “very strong” and “changing the rules of the game."

But on June 15, the FDA revoked permission to urgently use the drug to treat COVID-19, saying that "there is no reason to believe" that the drug is effective against the virus, it increases the risk of side effects, including heart problems.

As a result, 63 million unused doses of hydroxychloroquine remained in the Strategic National Reserve, plus another 2 million doses of chloroquine, a related drug donated by Bayer, according to Carol Danko, a spokeswoman for the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Many public health experts point to all this as a sad chapter in the history of the pandemic.

“Nationally, we're focusing a lot of attention on one drug: hydroxychloroquine,” said David Holtgrave, dean of the School of Public Health at the University at Albany, who co-authored a study on the drug to treat coronavirus disease. “I am concerned that history will judge this as an overinvestment in one treatment pathway rather than a broader view of more options.”

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Before the FDA revoked its approval, the National Strategic Stockpile had already distributed 31 million doses. Novartis and Mylan donated the drug to the warehouse.

"HHS is working with companies that donated product to identify available options for the drug remaining in the Strategic National Stockpile," Danko wrote in a statement to CNN.

Hydroxychloroquine has been used for many years to treat diseases such as malaria, rheumatoid arthritis, and lupus. After President Trump began promoting hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19, patients with these diseases reported that they had difficulty finding a cure.

The news of the remaining doses was first published in the New York Times.

In May, FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Khan wrote that his agency’s decision to authorize hydroxychloroquine in March "was based on an assessment of the criteria and scientific evidence available at that time."

However, many infectious disease experts, including those who have studied the drug for treating coronavirus, say there has never been any evidence that the drug worked against the virus.

In March, Trump wrote on Twitter, citing a French study that hydroxychloroquine and the antibiotic azithromycin "have a real chance of becoming one of the most significant changes in the history of medicine." He remained a supporter of the drug for several months and even said that he took it himself after being exposed to the virus.

This French study had so many problematic implications that it was abandoned by those who first published it. The study did not conclude that the drug worked for COVID patients—just that it reduced the amount of virus found in the nose and throat.

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Additionally, this was a very small study—only 20 patients—and did not include those who took hydroxychloroquine and died or ended up in the intensive care unit.

Following complaints, the authors of the medical journal International Study of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy concluded that the study "does not meet the expected standard of society."

Since then, two large studies have shown: the drug is ineffective against coronavirus. One of them, published in the journal of the American Medical Association, demonstrates: in patients with COVID taking the drug, the likelihood of heart failure is more than twice as high.

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