I use it medicinally.
Posted on 03/19/2020 10:51:44 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
President Donald Trump announced Thursday that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved hydroxychloroquine—a drug used to treat malaria, rheumatic diseases and other conditions—for COVID-19.
As the COVID-19 pandemic spreads around the world, scientists are scrambling to identify treatments that may be effective against the disease. Hydroxychloroquine—a common derivative of chloroquine—is among those touted as most promising by some experts.
"The nice part is, it's been around for a long time, so we know that if things don't go as planned its not going to kill anybody," Trump told reporters at a press conference. "When you go with a brand new drug, you don't know if that's going to happen. Its shown very very encouraging early results and we're going to be able to make that drug available almost immediately."
But how effective is the drug? This week, researcher Didier Raoult from Aix-Marseille University in France, one of the main proponents for using hydroxychloroquine to treat infection with the novel coronavirus—known as SARS-CoV-2—released encouraging results of a preliminary trial involving a total of 36 COVID-19 patients.
According to a draft paper—which has not yet been accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed scientific journal—six of these patients were asymptomatic, 22 had upper respiratory tract infection symptoms and eight had lower respiratory tract infection symptoms.
Between early and mid-March, Raoult and his team treated 20 of these patients with 600 milligrams of hydroxychloroquine daily in a hospital setting. Depending on their symptoms, an antibiotic known as azithromycin was also added to the treatments. This antibiotic is known to be effective against complications from bacterial lung disease. The 16 remaining patients were not given the drug as a control.
In the study, the scientists observed a "significant" reduction in viral load in the patients treated with hydroxychloroquine,
(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com ...
I hope the world does not depend on China for that antibiotic. I don’t trust them at all now, for anything.
Z-Pak! A readily available drug. I consider this wonderful news.
Oof. I’m allergic to Z-PAK.
Azithromycin is Zithromax(The Z-Pack)
Macrolides.
Zithromax and Biaxin are both macrolide antibiotics. They belong to the same family (Macrolide antibiotics) Often if a patient experiences an allergic reaction to one member of an antibiotic family it is likely they could be allergic to an other member.
My lovely wife—the RN—says these drugs are fairly safe in the majority of patients so this is hopeful news.
I was talking w/a cousin yesterday about Hydrochloroquine. Didn’t know she’s been taking it for another ailment. However, she said it will certainly help treat those w/the virus. Her husband is a doctor so she knows.
Trump has been pushing for using existing drugs ‘off label’. The FDA has until now refused to approve the drugs for Wuhan virus, even though the drugs have been tested and on the market for years. Looks like they have given in on this one. The FDA and CDC are all wrapped up in red tape. For a totally new drug with no testing it’s understandable to be cautious, but for existing drugs that have been prescribed for years, or decades, it shouldn’t be so hard to start trying them.
The whole world will be buying tonic water and seltzer now. Good for Seagramm’s I gues.
I already got a supply of the drug as I was taking it as a malaria prophylactic in January and February during a trip in Northern Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam, much of it by boat on the Mekong River.
Much of my travel was near the China border and also spent 2 days in Seoul South Korea just before they halted flights to the USA
GOD was looking out for me!
Approved as a “compassionate” treatment for Wuton Coronavirus. The good part of this is they’ve set this up so EACH approval will be set up to be tracked (apparently the physician/facility receiving the approval will report the results) for the result of the treatment for that individual patient. This set-up will allow the FDA to get substantial efficacy data very quickly.
Since, in the US, the size of the outbreak is not yet substantial we could see a significant suppression of the number of Coronavirus deaths from what otherwise may have occurred. This, of course, assumes widespread adoption of the treatment. Will all physicians adopt this as part of their standard protocol? IMHO, THEY’D BE OUT OF THEIR MINDS TO NOT TRY IT.
I use it medicinally.
TY.
Every time I get sinus infection...doc prescribes Z-PAK...even tho it is clearly marked on my chart of my allergy.
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