Drug lost trust of WHO, Europe researchers

LAHORE: Unlike Pakistan health authorities, the whole world, especially Europe, has stopped hydroxychloroquine trials as they did not find evidence that medicine can treat the coronavirus.

Hydroxychloroquine is anti-malarial drug and is used to cure lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.

The study released on Monday at the University of Health Sciences by its VC Dr Javed Akram claimed that the drug was not only safe but it had shown 86pc recovery rate in Covid-19 patients.

The study was overseen by the task force on science, chaired by Prof Dr Attaur Rahman.

The task force was notified by Federal Ministry of Science and Technology.

It was French professor Didier Raoult who first made claims in March that hydroxychloroquine could treat Covid patients after a study based on 40 patients treated at his hospital. After this study, US President Trump ordered 29m doses of the medicine in April despite the fact that Europe was still divided over the efficiency of the drug. According to a report published in Forbes magazine in April, there was a strong response to Prof Raoult’s claims even in France and the French Society of Pharmacology and Therapeutics issued an alert against the use of self-medication after they reportedly developed cardiac issues after taking the medicine.

At the end of May, France banned the use of hydroxychloroquine for treating Covid-19 due to health concerns. In May, The Lancet, a renowned medical journal, issued a study of 1,500 patients treated with hydroxychloroquine between December 2019 and April this year, suggested that not only the death rate was higher but heart rhythm problems were five times higher in the patients who took the medicine. According to France 24, on May 27, the French government revoked a decree authorising hospitals to prescribe the controversial drug for Covid-19 patients after France’s public health watchdog warned against its use to treat the disease. It also reported that European Medicines Agency warned that there was no indication HCQ (hydroxychloroquine) could treat Covid-19 and said that some studies had seen serious and sometimes fatal heart problems in patients.

At the end of May, the World Health Organsation (WHO) temporarily stopped the study looking into whether the hydroxychloroquine could be effective in treating the coronavirus over concerns about the side effects of the drug. However, it resumed the study on June 4. Finally, on June 17 it dropped hydroxychloroquine from its trial for finding out cure for Covid-19.

According to the WHO website, “On 17 June 2020, WHO announced that the hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) arm of the Solidarity Trial to find an effective COVID-19 treatment was being stopped. The trial’s Executive Group and principal investigators made the decision based on evidence from the Solidarity trial, UK’s Recovery trial and a Cochrane review of other evidence on hydroxychloroquine.

Data from Solidarity (including the French Discovery trial data) and the recently announced results from the UK’s Recovery trial both showed that hydroxychloroquine does not result in the reduction of mortality of hospitalised COVID-19 patients, when compared with standard of care.”

Though The Lancet study was retracted because the company that provided data could not release full access to it for third-party peer review due to agreements with clients and confidentiality requirements, however, report by the Forbes on July 19 referred to two more drug trials that failed to find evidence that hydroxychloroquine could treat Covid-19.

Referring to the trials, one conducted in the UK, called Randomised Evaluation of Covid-19 Therapy, and the other at the University of Minnesota, US, a report on the Wired, an American magazine, published on July 16, says, “Hydroxychloroquine does not appear to keep people from getting the disease after they’ve been exposed to someone who has it. It does not change how many people hospitalised with Covid-19 die of the disease. It does not reduce symptoms for people with milder cases who aren’t in the hospital.”

Even the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the US that had earlier stockpiled the medicine, revoked emergency approval of the drug for Covid treatment on June 16. On July 1, it issued caution against use of hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine for Covid-19 outside the hospital setting or clinical trial due to risk of heart rhythm problems.

Taking into account all the above evidence and controversies, it looks surprising that the health authorities in Pakistan have found the results different from the rest of the rest in support of the use of hydroxychloroquine to cure Covid-19.