The outbreak of pandemic, COVID-19 in real sense shaken the entire world and the drug, Hydroxychloroquine which has been used in the treatment of novel coronavirus positive patients till date.
The World Health Organization on Monday announced that it is pausing clinical trials using the controversial malaria drug, hydroxychloroquine, to treat patients with COVID-19.
“The executive group has implemented a temporary pause of the hydroxychloroquine arm within the Solidarity trial while the safety data is reviewed by the data safety monitoring board†said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, during a press briefing.
Tedros said that the executive group of the so-called Solidarity Trial, in which hundreds of hospitals across several countries have enrolled patients to test several possible treatments for the novel coronavirus, had as a precaution suspended trials using that drug.
A study published in a medical journal The Lancet looked at over 96,000 patients with COVID-19. Almost 15,000 patients in the cohort had received chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine. The study found that taking the drug was more likely to die in hospital and suffered heart problems.
Researchers are still looking to understand how hydroxychloroquine might benefit patients with COVID-19, including in combination with the antibiotic azithromycin and zinc.
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