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A Brooklyn woman desperately ill with the coronavirus is breathing easy this Mother’s Day thanks to a novel treatment her medical-student son helped provide. Josephine Bruzzese, who is 48 and otherwise healthy, woke up on March 22 with a fever, body aches, dry cough and trouble breathing. She lost the ability to smell or taste. Her family rushed her to NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn in Sunset Park. “She was so short of breath she couldn’t speak” said her 23-year-old son, James. The hospital diagnosed the mom of four with pneumonia, but with no coronavirus tests available, it sent her home as...

In one of the first reported cases of its kind, a 3-week-old infant in critical condition recovered from COVID-19 due to rapid recognition and treatment by physicians from McGovern Medical School at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth). "Our team was called to admit the patient in PICU, and when we saw the X-ray, we were suspicious immediately that it could be the coronavirus. We took early precautions to protect our team and avoid the spread to health care providers," Coronado said. "We thought the child was sicker than the normal child we see. On top...

Introduction: The first-line therapy for the intermittent preventive treatment of malaria in pregnancy (IPTp) is sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP). There is an urgent need to identify safe, well-tolerated and efficacious alternatives to SP due to widespread Plasmodium falciparum resistance. Combination therapy using azithromycin and chloroquine is one possibility that has demonstrated adequate parasitological response > 95% in clinical trials of non-pregnant adults in sub-Saharan Africa and where IPTp is a government policy in 33 countries. Areas covered: Key safety, tolerability and efficacy data are presented for azithromycin and chloroquine, alone and/or in combination, when used to prevent and/or treat P. falciparum, P....

A panel of doctors and experts convened by the National Institutes of Health advised against combining two drugs that have been floated as possible cures for COVID-19, warning of potentially harmful effects. The COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel advised against combining hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug, and azithromycin, an antibiotic also known as 'Z-Pak,' outside of clinical trials. The panel said there is not enough clinical data to recommend either for or against the use of hydroxychloroquine for the treatment of COVID-19. If hydroxychloroquine is used, clinicians should monitor patients for adverse effects, the panel said, especially heart problems. Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin...

By Dr. Liji Thomas, MDApr 19 2020 The COVID-19 pandemic is still spreading around the world and affecting nearly 2.4 million people, with over 164,000 dead so far. With neither vaccine nor proven therapeutic drug being available so far, the need of the hour is for effective treatment. Now, a new study reports the potential usefulness of a combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin as a treatment in mild cases of COVID-19 infection and urges the need for further evaluation and widespread use if its findings are confirmed. Why do we need a COVID-19 cure? COVID-19 began in December 2019, caused...

Three French doctors used a combination of azithromycin and zinc to treat hundreds of patients infected with the COVID-19 coronavirus. Inspired by Previous work on the combination of hydrochloroquine and azithromycin, three doctors practicing in the Moselle in northern France have tested a new treatment on hundreds of patients. Not able to prescribe chloroquine which can only be prescribed in hospital, they prescribed to their coronavirus patients the antibiotic azithromycin along with zinc to increase its effectiveness, while patients with asthma were also prescribed Singulair (montelukast), which has anti-inflammatory properties. Dr. Gastaldi added that he prescribed this combination to over...

I just finished an online chat with my HS girlfriend. She's a RN in a NJ hospital. I learned a few things that are going on in that facility. They are packed. The hospital went into a "divert status" two weeks ago. That means heart attacks, strokes, car accidents, etc. have to go elsewhere. The ICU is all COVID-19, all ventilated. The ER has a large number of ventilated patients also. Previously unused wards that had one time been pediatrics are now negative pressure COVID wards, all full. The initial order for most COVID-19 patients includes hydroxychloroquine and an azithromycin...

Perl said she was treated with hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug, and azithromycin, an antibiotic often referred to as a Z-Pak. She never needed a ventilator, but stayed on oxygen, which she was using anyway for a heart condition. But it’s unclear exactly what ultimately helped her. Several factors might have influenced Boccard’s unlikely success against the virus, including just how much virus Boccard was exposed to at the time of infection, said Dr. Aileen Marty, a professor of infectious diseases at Florida International University. A lighter exposure to the virus could make it easier to beat. Medications she was already...

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — A 102-year-old woman who was diagnosed with the coronavirus defied the odds and is now recovering. At 102 years old, Sophie Avouris, of Yonkers, has seen a lot in her life, entering this world in 1918 at the start of the Spanish flu. “She survived it, thank goodness,” her daughter, Effie Strouthides, said. Strouthides says back in March, doctors at a Manhattan nursing home and rehab facility called to tell her Avouris, who was recovering at the facility from hip surgery, tested positive for COVID-19. “And we were thinking at 102 years old, at high risk,...

DENVER (CBS4) – A Denver family physician has been prescribing a controversial medication to his patients, sick with coronavirus, and believes it is yielding positive results. Dr. Constantine Tsamasfyros, who has been a primary care doctor in Denver for nearly 50 years, told CBS4 Investigator Brian Maass he has prescribed a combination of hydroxychloroquine (also known as Plaquenil) and an antibiotic called azithromycin to about a dozen patients over the last few weeks. “They all did well. They seemed to reverse their symptoms in a day or two,” said Tsamasfyros, who said he “absolutely” believed the medication was working. “If...

At the risk of upsetting a few folks, someone who appears to be in the know has tossed a small bucket of cold water on the notorious hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin drug cocktail: [....] First up is this study from France. It’s another very small one, and all the usual warnings apply because of that. It’s from a team at the University of Paris and Saint-Louis Hospital there, and they evaluated 11 consecutive patients admitted there with the same course of treatment as the Marseilles group first reported (hydroxychloroquine 600mg/day and azithromycin, 500mg the first day and 250 mg/day thereafter). The...

Up to 4,000 New Yorkers critically ill with coronavirus are being treated with malaria drug hailed a 'game-changer' by Trump Health officials have sent hydroxychloroquine to 56 hospitals across New York The medication is most typically used to treat malaria, lupus and arthritis A small-scale French study found that the drug could reduce the duration of the illness, but doctors have warned against taking it without guidance Last month, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said the drug was being used in conjunction with another for 'compassionate use' In the US, there are more than 337,000 confirmed cases of the virus...

Over the past three weeks, we’ve been sharing with you the great work Dr. Zelenko, a board-certified family practitioner in New York, has been doing in the treatment of COVID-19 patients in New York. In our last piece, Dr. Vladimir Zelenko treated 700 coronavirus patients treated with 99.9% success rate using Hydroxychloroquine, 1 outpatient died after not following protocol.

Dr. Stephen Smith, founder of the Smith Center for Infectious Diseases and Urban Health in East Orange, New Jersey, said the remarkable results he is seeing in his coronavirus patients using a combination of the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine and the antibiotic azithromycin marks the “beginning of the end” of the COVID-19 pandemic. Appearing on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle” on Wednesday night, Smith said not a single patient he has been treating with the combination over a five-day period has had to be placed on a ventilator.

A combination of anti-malaria drug Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), the generic name is Plaquenil, and Azithromycin appear to be effective in treating COVID-19 patients. While Dr. Anthony Fauci wants to wait for studies that could take up to a year, there simply isn’t time. Anecdotal evidence from several countries, including China and France, suggest it is effective.

Judgement on Dr. Zelenko's Covid-19 treatment from Snopes: Has Dr. Zelenko Successfully Treated 669 Coronavirus Patients? A blog post asserting that people responded well to an experimental COVID-19 treatment is in no way an evidence-based contribution to science. Dr. Vladimir Zelenko's 669 COVID-19 patients that were treated with a combination of hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, and zinc have seen zero hospitalizations, complications, or deaths. As has been noted elsewhere, combining hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin can cause serious problems for people with certain heart conditions. Though zinc appears to be an important factor in several immune functions, a potential mechanism for how it might...

We’ve been talking about anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine for about three weeks now. However, U.S. health agencies like FDA and CDA, are still very cautious about the effectiveness and safety of the two drugs due to small trial size and lack of sufficient data. In France, the government caved to pressure from renowned Dr. Didier Raoult, who led the new additional study on 80 patients, results show a combination of Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin to be effective in treating COVID-19. Dr Didier Raoult, a professor of infectious diseases who works at La Timone hospital in Marseille, then declared in a video on...

On March 19, we published a story about a trial study conducted by French researchers which showed a combination of Hydroxychloroquine (plaquenil) and Azithromycin to be effective in the treatment of COVID-19 patients. The study, which was led by renowned Didier Raoult​ M.D/Ph.D, et. al in France, showed that 100% of patients that received a combination of the two anti-malaria drugs tested negative and were virologically cured within 6 days of treatment. The first preliminary trial involved a total of 36 COVID-19 patients. However, U.S. health agencies like FDA and CDA, are still very cautious about the effectiveness and safety...

Dr. Vladimir (Zev) Zelenko Board Certified Family Practitioner 501 Rt 208, Monroe, NY 10950 845-238-0000 March 23, 2020 To all medical professionals around the world: My name is Dr. Zev Zelenko and I practice medicine in Monroe, NY. For the last 16 years, I have cared for approximately 75% of the adult population of Kiryas Joel, which is a very close knit community of approximately 35,000 people in which the infection spread rapidly and unchecked prior to the imposition of social distancing. As of today my team has tested approximately 200 people from this community for Covid-19, and 65% of...

Laurus Labs, one of the world's largest manufacturers of anti-HIV drugs on March 27, said it will supplying anti-malarial drug Hydroxychloroquine to its US partner Rising Pharma Holdings to test as a preventive treatment for novel coronavirus, or COVID-19. The company has received an approval from the US Food & Drug Administration (USFDA) to market Hydroxychloroquine Sulphate tablets. (Please see link for full story)