No it was demonstrated that the very sick patients got hcq, those less ill didn’t. Clearly a biased test. There is anecdotal evidence of hcq working and a 1000 patient study from France that backs that up. There is no evidence of anything else working. So doctors continue to administer hcq to their patients.
If you want to educate yourself read this....it’s a balanced article:
Thousands of Covid-19 patients world-wide are signing up for studies exploring whether antimalaria drugs fight off infections of the new coronavirus, according to a Wall Street Journal review of a clinical-trial database, and thousands more patients are taking the unproven pills as part of their treatment.
Researchers studying the drugs have drawn up plans to enroll about 200,000 people to test whether the drugs could be used to prevent infections or help the sick get over them. More than 100 studies are under way, according to the analysis, which reviewed the U.S. government’s clinicaltrials.gov registry of trials and interviewed researchers.
The global efforts are seeking a long-elusive answer regarding these drugs: Could they help fight off a virus? So far, researchers in China and France studying small numbers of patients have reported they may help patients, and U.S. doctors using the drugs tout their benefits.
UNDERSTANDING CORONAVIRUS
Yet many infectious-disease experts say there isn’t sufficient scientific evidence to determine whether taking an antimalaria pill will truly help in a safe way, especially studies comparing how patients who took the drug fared with those who didn’t.
"’Does it offer benefit?’ is the big question we want to know the answer to,” said Roy Gulick, chief of infectious diseases at New York’s Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian. “We’re not there yet.”
The most advanced studies could have results in the coming weeks, researchers said.
Citing the lack of evidence, public-health authorities and infectious-disease experts, including Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, have cautioned against coronavirus treatment with the drugs, chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, until there is more concrete evidence.
This week, a panel convened by the U.S. National Institutes of Health recommended against using hydroxychloroquine in combination with the antibiotic azithromycin except during clinical trials. The experts cited potential heart problems the combination could cause.
Joseph Brewer, an infectious-disease specialist in Kansas City, Mo., says most of the four-dozen moderate and severe patients he treated with the drugs have improved.PHOTO: JOSEPH BREWER
The NIH also said there wasn’t sufficient data to recommend, or recommend against, using hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine alone.
Many hospitals, however, are giving the drugs to Covid-19 patients in a bid to relieve breathing difficulties, while doctors are prescribing the pills to patients with mild symptoms such as cough and fever to stop the condition from worsening.
Some doctors who have been giving the drugs to Covid-19 patients swear by their benefits, and say patients can’t wait weeks or months for rigorous studies to read out.
“I don’t need anything else to convince me,” said Joseph Brewer, an infectious-disease specialist at St. Luke’s Hospital in Kansas City, Mo., who says most of the four-dozen moderate and severe patients he treated with the drugs have improved. “I’ve seen people get better in one to two days.”
The U.S. Food & Drug Administration, which last month authorized the emergency use of the drugs in hospitalized Covid-19 patients, cautioned Friday about using them outside hospitals and clinical trialsdue to the risk of dangerous side effects. The FDA also said it is investigating reports of Covid-19 patients who received the antimalarials and died or suffered serious heart problems.
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The antimalarials are among dozens of drugs developed for other uses that are now under study to see if they can help tackle the new coronavirus.
Chloroquine was approved decades ago to treat and prevent malaria by fighting the disease parasite. Hydroxychloroquine, discovered later, is considered by doctors to be less toxic. Researchers later found both could reduce inflammation. Hydroxychloroquine is now approved for autoimmune diseases like lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, and chloroquine has been used for those diseases, too.
The pills can have rare side effects, including eye and heart problems, although hydroxychloroquine less so.
Researchers have repeatedly explored whether the malaria drugs could fight off viruses, from HIV to influenza and coronaviruses, but the pills never worked in humans.
Some scientists and doctors, looking for something that could help treat coronavirus cases, were drawn to the malaria pills, theorizing their anti-inflammatory properties might help contain the hyperactive immune response seen in Covid-19 patients.
The medicines’ potential for treating Covid-19 gained traction in March as President Trump praised them on Twitter and during news conferences.