THE drug hydroxychloroquine, once touted by Donald Trump as a pandemic “game-changer,” should not be used to prevent COVID-19 and has no meaningful effect on patients already infected, a World Health Organization expert panel said on Tuesday.
The anti-inflammatory drug should not be used in the fight against the pandemic, the WHO’s Guideline Development Group expert panel wrote in the BMJ British medical journal, and is “not worthwhile” exploring in further research studies of possible COVID-19 treatments.
This “strong recommendation,” the experts said, is based on high-certainty evidence from six randomized controlled trials involving more than 6,000 participants both with and without known exposure to COVID-19.
Former US President Trump said last March that hydroxychloroquine could be a game-changer in the coronavirus pandemic. He also said he was taking it himself, even after the US medicines regulator, the Food and Drug Administration, advised that its efficacy and safety were unproven.
But the WHO’s experts said they now “judged that almost all people would not consider this drug worthwhile.” — Reuters
