Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Saturday said that Hydroxychloroquine should be used as prophylaxis to prevent Coronavirus and not as a treatment for COVID-19.

NDTV ^ | 04/12/2020

[SeekAndFind]

Hydroxychloroquine Not To Be Used As COVID-19 Cure: Top Medical Body India has so far 7,529 positive cases of COVID-19. (Representational)

New Delhi: The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Saturday said that hydroxychloroquine or HCQ should be used as prophylaxis to prevent the coronavirus and not as a treatment for COVID-19. "Two trials were conducted aborad. The trails were not good enough. So, we thought if it needs to used in our country, it should be used as prophylaxis, and not as a treatment," Raman R Ganagakhedkar, Head Scientist, ICMR, told ANI.

"We have decided that if it reduces the chances of COVID-19 among doctors and their contacts, then we will advise it to others. The results of the effect of HCQ in them is yet to come," he added.

He, however, cautioned that HCQ has side effects as well.

"We have never recommended it to the general public. Doctors are advised to prescribe to patients judiciously. People need not be worried nor they need to start using HCQ. Like other medicines, this has side effects too. If we get the desired or futile results, we will inform the public," said Mr Ganagakhedkar.

He further said that it is very hard to say whether or not COVID-19 patient, who has recovered is likely to be COVID-19 positive again or not.

"It is very hard to say something about this. We have initiated a study for this. It will take time. We will tell everything based on evidence," he added.

The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Thursday had said that the government has more than enough stock of HCQ for meeting the current requirement.

India has temporarily licensed the export of paracetamol and anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) in appropriate quantities to some countries, which have been badly affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

India has so far 7,529 positive cases of COVID-19 and 242 deaths caused by the virus.

[gas_dr]

It’s ok. When you are sick we will still take care of you.

[MrEdd]

No, it is not.
The treatment part the press has been forced to concede.

But we knew about the prophylaxis first, thats a major part in how the treatment was developed.

It was noted that on those quarantined cruise ships none of the passengers who were on hydroxychloroquine contracted the virus (and a few ships had sizable contingents of people taking hydroxychloroquine as an antimalarial prophylaxis)and the ships Doctor of one of the ships made the connection.

Passengers of the ship went out spreading the word of that in February and I met one on another forum.

[gas_dr]

96% mild and 4% critical from the same source. So why don’t you take all the mild cases and add them to the recovers to get a truer number. Don’t cherry-pick your source info. Dangerously close to Fearper technique

[gas_dr]

Tell you what. You are welcome to sit at home pending data. But as one of the physicians who have actually treated this disease it is not a 25% proposition of dying if you are monitored and all your other stats are pure conjecture. And certainly the percentage needing critical care that you site is wayyyyyy off. Again, I know this because I am treating it as an intensivist.

[nathanbedford]

As a percentage of the general population or as a percentage of those who have contracted some form of the disease, the wonderfully low number of those dying is well known.

What is seldom observed on these threads is the percentage of those confirmed cases who die. That tells us that it is a very serious matter to be hospitalized. Do you not want the people to know that or is this another example of Chito Jesus saves versus orange man bad? Please believe me, my observations have nothing whatever to do with Trump at this point, I fully support him in every way.

That is not "cherry picking," that is a very important part of the analysis.

I invite you again to see my #52

[Incorrigible]

Bump

[gas_dr]

I guess I could agree with you but there is no point in us both being wrong

[null and void]

Weekly HOCQ. No prophylaxis Z-pack.

Makes the supply problem much smaller, and mimics the already wide-spread use against malaria.

[nathanbedford]

I am just looking at the numbers, have I got them wrong? Please tell me where of those Presented in this thread and in the one for which I posted the URL.

[nathanbedford]

Perhaps the discrepancy lies in the category "cases with outcomes"? Is that a term of art that I am misconstruing?

[gas_dr]

Fair enough
The worldodometer states that 96% are mild cases and this is up from 95% two days ago. Not insignificant numbers given the sample side. My main criticism of these data and other data are slow to post recovered. It’s a viral disease. In my experience with this and other viral diseases of this nature you are either dead in the first 14 days or you recover.

There is an incredible slowness in stating recovered. Even if we wake the earliest South Korean data most of those cases are not classified. So based on all the relevant literature 4% of cases are critical but all the other cases are rested or monitored. Remember up until now testing means symptoms. So the assertion that 25% end up dead is incorrect. I see the data set you are using but it is not a good data set

Since I have started opining one this issue my initial estimate was 55,000 deaths in the United States and that we would find the death rate of this particular virus to be 0.1-0.2%. As such I have been called among other things a flu bro. Additionally in the hospitals in which I work most cases do not become ICU cases. Let alone die.

I appreciate your points but respectfully submit that the data of the analysis are incorrect data set

[ncpatriot]

thank you for that

[2111USMC]

Could you write me a script? I use the Walgreens on Kimberly and Eastern. Thanks!

:)

[SeekAndFind]

RE: My initial estimate was 55,000 deaths in the United States and that we would find the death rate of this particular virus to be 0.1-0.2%. As such I have been called among other things a flu bro.

OK, for comparison purposes, what is the death rate of the flu for 2017, 2018 and 2019?

[Madam Theophilus]

I have family who lived in Pune, India for several years (NW of Bombay) and they never had to take malaria medication. Malaria is actually a problem in only a quarter of the country. The drug is probably available everywhere, but is taken only in areas where the mosquitoes are known to be prevalent, usually in the rainy season.

https://www.malariasite.com/malaria-india/

[gas_dr]

I think the current influenza deaths rate this year stands at 65,000
Influenza tends tk run in the millions of cases in America with2.4 million seeking medical attention then something several Hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations and around 50-80 thousand deaths.

That’s off the top of my head what I read for this year.

[clearcarbon]

Seems like there would be an initial dosage and some kind of smaller maintenance dosage. Hopefully they’ll soon find a minimum dosage required to protect folks from the virus.

[Chaguito]

My sister-in-law has taken HCQ for 22 years for RA. No problems, except for old age, 85 years old.

[CurlyDave]

...This is a game-changer. If you can give the public a daily dose of HCQ with a Z-pack, we can open up the country immediately...

A game-changer, yes.

Open the country immediately, well not so fast there. We would need about 200 million doses per day to do that. That much does not exist -- yet. Not that it could not be made at that rate, but it would be an engineering challenge.

Maybe everyone over a certain age gets the drug, with a lot in reserve for younger people who get the disease, and we ramp up production. I have great confidence in DJT getting us back & running ASAP but it is not going to be "immediately".

BTW, I think the US is going to come back faster than other countries, because of DJT. This will be huge for us. Read any economics book and they are always talking about certain countries or regions having a "comparative advantage" in producing certain goods.

Comparative advantage is going to swing to the US side when we open up.

[catnipman]

these people are even bigger idiots than our own medical establishment idiots ... still, more HCQ for the U.S. as long as they’re willing to kill their own citizens ...

btw, does it really make sense to use this as an unproven prophylactic but not use it as an “unproven” cure?