Hydroxychloroquine Drug That Seemed To Kill COVID-19 Isn't Working As Doctors Thought

A few days ago we came across a study that revealed chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine haven¡¯t really been the silver bullets against COVID-19 that we were promised.

Instead, the medicine has been causing severe cardiac issues in patients, while also claiming the lives of 11 patients in the study.

AFP

Since then, there have been numerous debates doubting the true efficacy of the drug. And now, another team of researchers from France, led by Matthieu Mahevas show us how ineffective the drug truly is.

They wanted to test the drug in a ¡®real-world¡¯ setting of sorts. They pulled medical records from four hospitals in France -- looking at 181 patients of similar demographics like age, gender, health conditions etc. All the patients required ventilators to breathe due to acute lung infections caused thanks to COVID-19.

Published in Medrxiv, researchers claim these patients were one of the more serious cases, as opposed to test subjects that glorified the use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine (those patients had mild symptoms with higher chances of recovery even without treatment).

From the patients who were put on a hydroxychloroquine routine, 20.5 percent of them had been moved into ICU or had died within just a week¡¯s time. From the patients who weren¡¯t offered hydroxychloroquine 22.1 percent people were either admitted to the ICU and/or died within a week.

Researchers also looked at the side effects of the drug. Even though hydroxychloroquine -- essentially a derivative of chloroquine -- is a safer alternative, it has a bunch of side effects (which were also pointed in the study conducted in Brazil). And this also reflected in this study.

Representative image: AP

Study witnessed 10 percent of patients on the course of Hydroxychloroquine to experience irregular heartbeat that forced doctors to stop the treatment in just a duration of about four days. Even heart muscle took time to recharge in between beats.

According to researchers, ¡°One patient who received no other medication that might interfere with cardiac conduction presented a first-degree atrioventricular block after two days of hydroxychloroquine treatment.¡±

Authors of the study concluded, ¡°In conclusion, we found that hydroxychloroquine did not significantly reduce admission to ICU or death at day seven after hospital admission, or acute respiratory distress syndrome in hospitalised patients with hypoxemic pneumonia due to COVID-19.¡±

They further added, ¡°These results are of major importance and do not support the use of hydroxychloroquine in patients hospitalised for a documented Sars-CoV-2 pneumonia.¡±