Hydroxychloroquine Fails to Work in Early Studies

The malaria pill that has caused so much debate does not appear to be living up to claims concerning its COVID-19 killing abilities. 

That is not the final word on the drug. It is the result of a small study that has not yet been peer reviewed. That said, preliminary results from a Chinese study, which was a randomized, double-blind study, do not show that Hydroxychloroquine helped infected patients get rid of the virus. 

Further studies on the drug continue. When we know more, whatever the verdict, I’ll pass it along to you. 

From Bloomberg:

Hydroxychloroquine appeared not to help patients get rid of the pathogen in a small study.

The pill didn’t help patients clear the virus better than standard care and was much more likely to cause side effects, according to a study of 150 hospitalized patients by doctors at 16 centers in China. The research, which hasn’t been peer-reviewed, was released Tuesday.

The drug did help alleviate some clinical symptoms of Covid-19, however, and the patients who took it showed a greater drop in C-reactive protein, a measure of inflammation.

“When testing new treatments, we are looking for signals that show that they might be effective before proceeding to larger studies,” said Allen Cheng, an infectious diseases physician and a professor of epidemiology at Melbourne’s Monash University. “This study doesn’t show any signal, so it is probably unlikely that it will be of clinical benefit.”