The new study on approximately 100,000 coronavirus patients has confirmed that medicines such as hydroxychloroquine are useless against coronavirus. Hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine were reportedly promoted with benefits to treat coronavirus and prevent death by a coronavirus. However, there is no scientific value in these claims so the efficacy of these drugs against coronavirus proves to be a hoax.
Hydroxychloroquine is a standard treatment drug for arthritis and chloroquine is an anti-malarial medicine. Although these medicines have no link with respiratory illnesses the recent statements by US President Trump ignited the whole world calling these medicines a treatment for coronavirus leading the major countries to bulk purchase these medicines.
Chloroquine as well as hydroxychloroquine is useless when it comes to treating coronavirus patients. This was confirmed by monitoring the hospitalized patients of coronavirus which were tested positive and exhibited severe symptoms. The complete findings of this study are reported in the journal ‘The Lancet’.
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These results were obtained after going through 96,000 patients admitted in the hospitals, all of which were at high risk of death by coronavirus. The data on their medication indicated that these medicines actually contributed to their risk of death.
These patients were divided into four categories; group one included patients who were being treated with hydroxychloroquine only, group two was treated with chloroquine only. Group three and four included patients who were put on these drugs along with other antibiotics. This whole protocol of using unlikely medicines for treating the coronavirus patients was to find a novel treatment method that might help to get over the coronavirus pandemic.
In addition to these four groups, there was another group called ‘control group’ which has none of these medicines given. By the end of the study period, only 9% of people from this control group lost their lives to the coronavirus. However, patients who were put on hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine in groups one and two, nearly 18% and 16.4% died because of coronavirus, respectively.
People who were given these medicines along with other antibiotics showed a high mortality rate. The group which was given chloroquine and other antibiotics showed 22.8% deaths and the group which was given hydroxychloroquine with antibiotics reported 23.8% deaths. Analyzing this data show that coronavirus patients who were given chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine were likely to die showing hydroxychloroquine is useless to treat coronavirus. It also tells that using these medications in combination with other medicines is even more dangerous as it is more likely to cause death by coronavirus among the severe stage patients.
These results summarized that patients were 45% higher risk of death by coronavirus as compared to death caused by any other disease.
Mandeep Mehra from the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Center for Advanced Heart Disease says that the analysis reveals that hydroxychloroquine is useless for coronavirus patients. It also tells that chloroquine is also of no help. Instead of treating coronavirus, these two, reportedly treatment medicines for coronavirus are putting the patients on an even higher risk of heart diseases and death, he says.
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This study falsified the previous hype of how hydroxychloroquine could treat coronavirus. It became even more popular when President Trump endorsed it despite the U.S, the FDA repeatedly warned about using these medicines. In addition to Trump, the Brazilian health minister also suggested using these two medicines chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine to treat coronavirus cases, especially at initial stages or exhibiting mild symptoms.
Many countries ordered millions worth hydroxychloroquine and stocked it for using it on coronavirus patients. However, the warnings from medical experts have urged them not to use them on coronavirus patients. This study also confirms that either chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine is useless either alone or with antibiotics to treat coronavirus cases.