Posted on 03/21/2020 9:30:24 AM PDT by BraveMan
Could the old generic malaria drug hydroxychloroquine (Plaquenil, Sanofi-Aventis, among others), which is also used for the treatment of rheumatic disease, be an essential treatment for COVID-19?
This hypothesis, put forward by some, including Professor Didier Raoult of the IHU Méditerranée Infection in Marseille, was dismissed by other eminent infectious disease specialists and dismissed as fake news recently by the Ministry of Health.
Yet it resurfaced yesterday with the presentation on YouTube by Prof Raoult of positive results in a non-randomised, unblinded trial of 24 patients.
This follows encouraging in vitro results obtained by a Chinese team led by Xueting Yao, from Peking University Third Hospital, Beijing, China, which were published online by the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases on March 9th. However, the data were deemed insufficient by the infection community to recommend the compound as a treatment.
Moreover, chloroquine is not listed among the four treatments studied as part of the recently launched European clinical trial piloted by Inserm, which includes 3200 severe hospitalised patients, including 800 French patients.
Chloroquine was ruled out due to the risk of interactions with other medications for common comorbidities in infected patients, and because of possible adverse effects in patients undergoing resuscitation. The Marseille Study
The European Union Clinical Trials Register shows that the Marseille study was accepted on 5th March by the National Medicines Safety Agency (ANSM). It could include up to 25 COVID-19 positive patients, comprising five aged 12–17 years, 10 aged 18–64 years, and 10 more aged 65 years or over.
While the data have not yet been published, and should therefore be interpreted with caution, this non-randomised, unblinded study showed a strong reduction in viral load with hydroxychloroquine.
After 6 days, the percentage of patients testing positive for COVID-19 who received hydroxychloroquine fell to 25% versus 90% for those who did not receive the treatment (a group of untreated COVID-19 patients from Nice and Avignon).
In addition, comparing untreated patients, those receiving hydroxychloroquine and those given hydroxychloroquine plus the antibiotic azithromycin, the results showed there was "a spectacular reduction in the number of positive cases" with the combination therapy, said Prof Raoult.
At 6 days, among patients given combination therapy, the percentage of cases still carrying SRAS-CoV-2 was no more than 5%.
Azithromycin was added because it is known to be effective against complications from bacterial lung disease but also because it has been shown to be effective in the laboratory against a large number of viruses, the infectious disease specialist explained.
"Everyone who died from COVID-19 were still carriers of coronavirus. To no longer have the virus changes the prognosis," Prof Raoult said.
More detailed results of the study have been submitted for publication in the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents. Study Splits Infectious Disease Community
The announcement of positive results from this small study split medical opinion.
Rattlesnake antivenin isn’t 100% “safe”. There are potential side effects. Especially the older stuff made using horses. There is always a chance you’ll get an allergic reaction and die from the treatment. But...
If you get bitten by a rattlesnake, are you going to refuse the antivenin?
I heard somewhere that hydroxychloroquine had fewer side effects than mere chloroquine.
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Yes, that’s true. And hydroxychloroquine has been around and in aooroved use for a long time (since the 1950s?).
True that- there are many variables too- drugs need to be tested on particular cases too- like noone knows how the drug will work with this virus yet- likely it will be fine- but the virus ‘could’ cause a breakdown in a person’s system that would make the drug dangerous- again, it likely won’t- but there is a possibility because it hasn’t been tested with this virus yet-
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Actually it has been tested in multiple clinical trials against this virus. They were just small trials so far.
Not sure if this qualifys for the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list; your call . . .
FYI,
First trial is open.
Objective: To test if post-exposure prophylaxis with hydroxychloroquine can prevent progression development of symptomatic COVID19 disease after known exposure to the SARS-CoV2 virus.
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The mainstream media is going to be SO PISSED when these tests confirm that “FALSE HOPE TRUMP” was ACTUALLY RIGHT to have his “hope”. Trump’s hope is rationally based upon prior medical findings,
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Transcript of part of Dr. William Grace, (Lenox Hill Oncologist, New York) interview with Laura Ingraham on Fox News talking about using chloroquine to treat COVID-19
“Everybody is using it now off-label. We have a surge of coronavirus 19 patients throughout the metropolitan area of New York. And the problem is these patients are coming in quite sick and when they get to a very difficult respiratory status, doctors are using hydroxychloroquine with or without a drug called zithromax or azithromicin, and that’s showing tremendous activity. And we have not had a death in our hospital. We have probably close to 100 patients and not had any deaths. But I’ve talked to many of my colleagues at other hospitals in New York and they also are using hydroxychloroquine although the supplies are running down, so any kind of supplements to those supplies will be much appreciated. . . in the trenches we’re all using it, especially for desperately ill people . . . we think it works in two ways, as you know the death rate goes up as the age goes up, and what I think is the more mature your immune response is, the more likely you are to have a cytokine storm, which means that people with viral pneumonias die because their lungs fill up with fluids largely from an immune response, and this drug works not only inhibiting virus replication, but also inhibits the immune response so you don’t get the tremendous amount of inflammation. That’s why the drug is also used in rheumatoid arthritis and lupus”
As a child, my mother gave me quinine to suppress the very high fever that accompanies malaria. All I knew that it was produced from a treebark. I remember that it was a tiny, white, sugar-coated pill. WE were warned not to crush the pill. I understood that quinine is so bitter that crushing the pill can cause the patient to throw up for hours. My mother always gave the pill with a glass of water and warned me not to chew on it.
It brought the fever down every time.
yup unfortunately that is what will happen-
Yep- it’s pretty bitter- We drink tonic water for cramps in feet and legs with Q in it, and it is a bit bitter even at small amount-
Great. I’m allergic as can be to Plaquenil. Get hives all over, palms of hands, bottom of feet, including inside mouth and other um, just say places.
Yes, that’s true- but the need for testing comes in when it’s being used for something that it wasn’t approved for- like this new virus- because we don’t know how it will interact with the effects of the virus- for instance, a perfectly safe drug for people with say arthritis, might be deadly for someone with a virus that has high fever with it- or with a severely diminished breathing capability due to the virus- these things have to be tested when new drugs are tried for something they weren’t approved for- which is why it takes so long to get approval usually- hopefully though they can speed this up for an pandemic—
They know quinine is ‘mostly safe’ and has a pretty good long track record, but they do know there are some potential severe side effects- which could be made worse by something like a virus-
As kids we used to dare each other to lick a quinine tablet. I never did.
lol- we dared the others to lick an electric fence- tip- don’t do it!
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