Posted on 03/21/2020 9:30:24 AM PDT by BraveMan
Could the old generic malaria drug hydroxychloroquine (Plaquenil, Sanofi-Aventis, among others), which is also used for the treatment of rheumatic disease, be an essential treatment for COVID-19?
This hypothesis, put forward by some, including Professor Didier Raoult of the IHU Méditerranée Infection in Marseille, was dismissed by other eminent infectious disease specialists and dismissed as fake news recently by the Ministry of Health.
Yet it resurfaced yesterday with the presentation on YouTube by Prof Raoult of positive results in a non-randomised, unblinded trial of 24 patients.
This follows encouraging in vitro results obtained by a Chinese team led by Xueting Yao, from Peking University Third Hospital, Beijing, China, which were published online by the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases on March 9th. However, the data were deemed insufficient by the infection community to recommend the compound as a treatment.
Moreover, chloroquine is not listed among the four treatments studied as part of the recently launched European clinical trial piloted by Inserm, which includes 3200 severe hospitalised patients, including 800 French patients.
Chloroquine was ruled out due to the risk of interactions with other medications for common comorbidities in infected patients, and because of possible adverse effects in patients undergoing resuscitation. The Marseille Study
The European Union Clinical Trials Register shows that the Marseille study was accepted on 5th March by the National Medicines Safety Agency (ANSM). It could include up to 25 COVID-19 positive patients, comprising five aged 12–17 years, 10 aged 18–64 years, and 10 more aged 65 years or over.
While the data have not yet been published, and should therefore be interpreted with caution, this non-randomised, unblinded study showed a strong reduction in viral load with hydroxychloroquine.
After 6 days, the percentage of patients testing positive for COVID-19 who received hydroxychloroquine fell to 25% versus 90% for those who did not receive the treatment (a group of untreated COVID-19 patients from Nice and Avignon).
In addition, comparing untreated patients, those receiving hydroxychloroquine and those given hydroxychloroquine plus the antibiotic azithromycin, the results showed there was "a spectacular reduction in the number of positive cases" with the combination therapy, said Prof Raoult.
At 6 days, among patients given combination therapy, the percentage of cases still carrying SRAS-CoV-2 was no more than 5%.
Azithromycin was added because it is known to be effective against complications from bacterial lung disease but also because it has been shown to be effective in the laboratory against a large number of viruses, the infectious disease specialist explained.
"Everyone who died from COVID-19 were still carriers of coronavirus. To no longer have the virus changes the prognosis," Prof Raoult said.
More detailed results of the study have been submitted for publication in the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents. Study Splits Infectious Disease Community
The announcement of positive results from this small study split medical opinion.
“It would be inhumane and stupid to wait for a study when you can save lives with this well known drug!”
What happened to the “right to try”? Why isn’t everyone infected demanding that?
Instead of just talking about it, they should try it and find out.
Bob is Big . Ha!
it’s not entirely safe (IF it’s akin to Quinine) - If so, it can cause allergic reactions, sudden death, have effects on heart, kidneys, or blood cells - there are some medical conditions that increase the chance of bad side effects- Which i think is why they might be hesitant to try this en mass without running studies on it first-
BUT- these side effects are pretty rare- and honestly- given the choice of dying from virus, or possibly getting side effects from treatment, I’d choose the treatment- every time- especially given the fact that the side effects are rare-
It works by opening the cell to zinc. Zinc disrupts the virus in the cell and prevents replication.
Zinc lozenges dissolved on the tongue are most effective.
They will continue to report “mixed” results unless they can understand the need for zinc.
It needs zinc! Without zinc supplementation they will continue to report “mixed” results. Also it is thought to be be important to dissolve zinc lozenges on the tongue.
You are right but if you forgive me repeating myself all it does is open the cell for the Zinc. It is the zinc. Results, anecdotally, are rapid and dramatic! Safe dosage, brief duration rapid results.
“not entirely safe (IF it’s akin to Quinine)”
Safe means safe under indicated usage with associated contraindications and known adverse events, ie side effects.
If a doctor gave, for example, 10 times the dose at a 5 times more frequent schedule it would not be considered safe.
I heard somewhere that hydroxychloroquine had fewer side effects than mere chloroquine.
True that- there are many variables too- drugs need to be tested on particular cases too- like noone knows how the drug will work with this virus yet- likely it will be fine- but the virus ‘could’ cause a breakdown in a person’s system that would make the drug dangerous- again, it likely won’t- but there is a possibility because it hasn’t been tested with this virus yet-
Disregard Misleading Headline. Listen to the Dr.
are you talking about the quinine? Or the new one for malaria that they are using for the virus?
With quinine, a person can take it for a long time with no issues, then wham- dead- or a person could take it one time, have an allergic reaction an die- kinda like people that suddenly develop an allergy to fish- out of the blue-
Sure, all drugs practically have this potential but it was apparently bad enough with quinine that it no longer was recommended by docs for htigns like cramps-
in hte case of this virus- the short term use, high dose- very likely will be safe for most people- a small subset of folks might not fare well though- that’s why he big fuss over testing- but for things like pandemics- there should be some kind of waiver folks could sign to not hold anyone responsible if the drug does have the rare side effects- but lawyers won’t allow this unfortunately-
i think probably they both will be fine- with very few side effects for almost everyone- but lawyers are just waiting in the sidelines for someone to get side effects I’m sure-
FYI,
First trial is open.
Objective: To test if post-exposure prophylaxis with hydroxychloroquine can prevent progression development of symptomatic COVID19 disease after known exposure to the SARS-CoV2 virus.
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04308668?recrs=ab&cond=Covid19&cntry=US&draw=3&rank=12
Maybe because some NBC reporter said it was just false hope from Trump?
Thanks for that- hopefully they get something soon- and hopefully it will work for regular flues too as many many folks die from that from respiratory failures too- let’s hope an effective treatment is coming soon-
"Medical Opinion" is one of the worst obstructions of public health that I'm aware of. It brings to mind the discovery that stomach ulcers could be cured simply by the administration of a proper antibiotic. It took decades before "medical opinion" accepted that in a widespread way.
Most doctors I know are quite intelligent. However, their years of training focuses them on memorizing a near infinite measure of "medical opinion". It leaves little room for discovery and analysis of conflicting items.
Some of this is quite necessary. If a doctor spent time second guessing himself on life and death decisions, he would go quite mad. Nevertheless, now is the time to make decisions on the best available information and facts, not on "medical opinion". I'm glad we have a president who has the fortitude to do just that.
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