HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE & AZITHROMYCIN, taken together, have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine. The FDA has moved mountains - Thank You! Hopefully they will BOTH (H works better with A, International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents).....
More than 1,000 "high-risk" health workers are set to be given daily doses of anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to test how well it can ward off coronavirus.
Key points:
- There are hopes hydroxychloroquine, commonly used to treat lupus and malaria, could be useful in the fight against COVID-19
- Recent research has cast doubt on its effectiveness in treating sick patients
- Researchers hope this study will shed light on how well it works to prevent people contracting the virus
The drug has been at the centre of public debate since US President Donald Trump heralded it as a potential "game changer", and later revealed he was taking it himself, despite little evidence it prevents COVID-19.
"We're trying to move beyond opinion to generate rigorous scientific evidence," said rheumatologist Ian Wicks, from Melbourne's Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research.
Professor Wicks and fellow researcher Marc Pellegrini hope to recruit 2,250 "high-risk" frontline and allied health workers around Australia for the trial.
Half of the participants would take hydroxychloroquine daily for four months. The other half would take a sugar tablet placebo.
Coronavirus update: Follow all the latest news in our daily wrap.In laboratory conditions, hydroxychloroquine has been shown to stop SARS-CoV-2 — the virus that causes COVID-19 — from entering cells.
But the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advises against its use for COVID-19 outside of hospital or clinical trial conditions, because it can be dangerous to heart health and "has not been shown to be safe and effective for treating or preventing COVID-19".
'Huge leap of faith'
The drug received worldwide attention after Mr Trump tweeted in March that it could be a "game changer" in the fight against coronavirus, after some promising early research results.
Mr Trump said yesterday that he had been taking the drug for about a week-and-a-half.
"Here's my evidence: I get a lot of positive calls about it," Mr Trump said when asked about his decision. "I've heard a lot of good stories."
Professor Pellegrini told RN Breakfast that there "certainly is not any concrete evidence that the drug works".
"I would certainly not suggest that the drug should be taken in an ad hoc fashion, and should be only used in clinical trials to prove whether it does or doesn't work," he said.
"It certainly works in the test tube, but it's very different making the huge leap of faith jump to say that it would work in people."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-20/coronavirus-hydroxychloroquine-trial-donald-trump-game-changer/12266398
