Eagerness about the treatment for COVID-19 using malaria drugs has raised higher hopes which include US President Donald Trump. However, the pieces of scientific evidence that they can be great contributors are a thing, and a run on the said medicines is complicating access for those who are in need of them for either lupus or rheumatoid arthritis.
Additionally, as indicated in the Effingham Daily News website, Chloroquine, and a similar medicine called hydroxychloroquine, presented encouraging indications in "small, early tests" that fight COVID-19.
However, the same website indicated, the said medicines have major side effects, a reason science experts are not keen to prescribe them without proof of their value, even in this season of emergency brought by the pandemic.
Thus far, those initial research studies ignited a strong interest, following President Trump's tweet that "hydroxychloroquine and an antibiotic" can be among the major game-changers in medicine's history, and needs to be employed right away.
The country head also cited a French study that gave the drug combination to six patients. Relatively, several French doctors, as well as the politicians are pushing to expand as well, the use of hydroxychloroquine.
Scientists' Warning
Despite the high hopes malaria has brought, in relation to COVID-19 treatment, scientists have warned though, about the drugs, nurturing false hopes. They've said too, that their huge research studies are needed for the drugs to be proven effective and safe from COVID-19, and to show that patients would not have been well and recovered on their own.
According to Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, at present, there is no medicine "that looks like it's proven to be very overwhelming" in the early-period clinical tests that can be said to be extremely promising.
Moreover, possible side-effects have also been presented. Essentially, Chloroquine has been utilized for the treatment of malaria since the 30s decade. Hydroxychloroquine, on the other hand, followed a decade after, and this, according to medical experts, demonstrates lesser side effects.
This latter-mentioned drug is available for sale in generic form, with the label, Plaquenil, which can be used to fight several other illnesses. As for the side-effects, the said drugs can lead to heart rhythm issues, extremely low blood pressure, and nerve and muscle damage.
As for Plaquenil, this drug warns of probable impairment to the retina, particularly when taken in higher doses, for longer periods, and when taken along with other drugs like the drug tamoxifen for breast cancer.
No Sufficient Evidence
When it comes to evidence, science and medicine experts say, "There is not much." Nevertheless, some studies indicated that Hydroxychloroquine has limited the ability of COVID-19 to enter cells in laboratory tests. This does not mean though that it would do a similar thing in humans, or that the drugs can tolerate the doses examined in the lab.
Meanwhile, a report from China indicated that chloroquine helped over 100 patients confined at 10 hospitals. However, these patients had different degrees of diseases and were treated with varying doses of different durations of time.
More so, the said patients may have recovered without the medicine, and there was no other group of other patients for comparison.
As earlier mentioned, in a French study conducted recently, it indicated that Doctors provided 26 people with confirmed COVID-19 infections, with hydroxychloroquine. Some of the patients did not display any symptoms. Six were provided with the antibiotic azithromycin, as well.
Six days after the drugs were given, no patient was provided with the hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin had infection "detected in a swab that came from the back of the nose," against the 57 percent of the patients who were given the malaria medicine alone, and the 12.5 percent of the other patients who did not receive any of the drugs mentioned.
