First in was US President Donald Trump on 19 March 2020 talking up a so-called miracle drug to treat COVID-19 infection, called hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine.
In Australia hydroxychloroquine is registered by the Theraputic Goods Administration (TGA) for use in rheumatoid arthritis, mild systemic and discoid lupus erythematosus, as well as the suppression and treatment of malaria.
However such was its enthusiasm, by 2 April 2020 the Morrison Government exempted hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine from having to meet TGA registration benchmarks for the lawful supply of medicines in this country.
In early April 2020 the general public also learned that Federal Health Minister & Liberal MP for Flinders Greg Hunt ‘struck a deal’ with suppliers to bring hydroxychloroquine into Australia to treat hospital patients infected with COVID-19.
Later that same month Queensland mining blowhard Clive Palmer paid for full page newspaper advertisements telling Australia he had purchased 32.9 million doses of the drug in early March for use by ill Australians.
All the while the World Health Organisation (WHO) was warning that this drug was untested for use in COVID-19 infections and might be dangerous.
Nevertheless a number of nations (including Australia) still supported trialing the drug with a view to using it as a treatment during the pandemic and, globally there was widespread use of hydroxychloroquine often in combination with a second-generation macrolide as a treatment of COVID-19, despite no conclusive evidence of their benefit.
Eventually WHO itself began a clinical trial of the drug.
On 22 May The Lancet published a multinational registry analysis of the use of hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine with or without a macrolide for treatment of COVID-19.
The registry comprised data from 671 hospitals on six continents. Included were patients hospitalised between 20 December 2019 and 14 April 2020, with a positive laboratory finding for SARS-CoV-2.
A total of 96,032 hospitalised patients were included in the analysis.
The findings were clear cut: “We were unable to confirm a benefit of hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine, when used alone or with a macrolide, on in-hospital outcomes for COVID-19. Each of these drug regimens was associated with decreased in-hospital survival and an increased frequency of ventricular arrhythmias when used for treatment of COVID-19.” [my yellow highlighting]
On 25 May 2020 WHO suspended its clinical trials of the drug on safety grounds.
Hopefully Morrison & Co will no longer flirt with the use of this drug in treating active COVID-19 infections.
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