Hydroxycloroquine
(Photo : Reuters Connect)

The result of a study using standard statistics revealed that the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloriquine does not cure COVID-19 and will likely cause more deaths.

What is Hydroxychloriquine?

Hydroxychloriquine is used to treat patients who have malaria that is caused by mosquito bites. This is also used to treat auto-immune diseases like lupus, rheumatoid, and arthritis according to WebMD. However, there are stringent guidelines in using this drug to treat its patients. 

Epidemiologist Does Not Recommend Anti-Malarial Drug

Martin Landray, the deputy chief investigator of the Recovery trial and professor of medicine and epidemiology at Oxford University, said that Hydroxychloriquine should not be given anymore to COVID-19 patients in any hospitals around the world because the drug does not cure. 

The drug was first believed as a potential cure to treat COVID-19 patients following the claims of few doctors and that includes Didier Raoult in France. This was also the basis of Pres. Trump why he touted the drug and even admitted that he was taking Hydroxycloriquine to protect himself from infections. Recently, he said that he already stopped using it. 

Meanwhile, Landray said that hyping people to use this anti-malarial drug should stop now. He asserted: "It is being touted as a game-changer, a wonderful drug, a breakthrough. This is an incredibly important result because worldwide we can stop using a drug that is useless." 

How the Clinical Was Conducted?  

The clinical trial of the drug was conducted since March where it was participated by 1,542 COVID-19 patients where they were randomized to receive the drug. Meanwhile, 3,132 patients were randomized as well to receive normal care. 

Result of the Research

COVID-19 patients who participated in the clinical trial were observed for over 28 days. It was found out that 25.7 percent of COVID-19 patients who were treated by the drug died while 23.5 percent of those who did not take the drug died as well.

Statistically, there is no significant difference between the two groups. But the number shows that the anti-malarial drug is not effective. With the margin of error of only five percent, the clinical trial failed. This simply means that the drug does not cure.

The World Health Organization recently stopped the global trial of Hydroxychloriquine because of the result of the research conducted by The Lancet. The study revealed that COVID-19 patients taking Hydroxychloriquine are more at higher risks of dying and have developed serious heart problems. 

From December to April, 14, 888 patients were treated using the anti-malarial drug but 10,700 of them died. According to the study, most of the patients have developed irregular heart rhythms that were believed as one of the causes of their death.

Following this, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency recommended immediately that the clinical trial of the drug must be stopped because it posed a high death risk.

Moreover, one of the leading infectious disease experts and global health at the University of Oxford, Peter Horby said that they already informed the World Health Organization about the result of the study. It was also found out that WHO restarted its trial again after it stopped its trial because of the result of the Lancet Paper. 

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