translated from Spanish: Hydroxychloroquine, the drug to be used in clinical trials against COVID-19

Recently the news was released that our country would be one of those that would conduct clinical trials to evaluate treatments for coronavirus disease, with Posadas Hospital being the first to apply it to its patients. Among them, hydroxychloroquine, an antimalarial drug sold under the brand name Plaquenil and used to treat systemic autoimmune diseases. This drug had already been tested in research conducted by French infectologist Didier Raoult after the country’s health minister, Olivier Veran, authorized hydroxychloroquine in association with lopinavir/ritonavir for the most severe cases of COVID-19 patients. In turn, this combination with lopinavir/ritonavir – currently given for the treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS – will also be tested in the clinical trial that will be conducted in our country.

Plusieurs Etats ont d’ores et déj’ intégré l’hydroxychloroquine ou la chloroquine dans leurs recommandations thérapeutiques pour le traitement du Covid-19 d’s la détection des sympt.mes du virus. pic.twitter.com/T1lTe4iE6A—Didier Raoult (@raoult_didier)
March 25, 2020

“Several states have already included hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine in their therapeutic recommendations for the treatment of COVID-19 as soon as symptoms of the virus are detected”, he stated the infectologist on his Twitter account.In addition, he reported that his teams had treated 25 patients with hydroxychloroquine and after six days only one in four still had the virus in his body, while 90% of patients who had not taken the drug were still infected. However, although this drug showed—also in China—being significantly associated with a decrease/disappearance of viral load, more trials are needed to determine whether it is really effective and safe. In this note:

Original source in Spanish