Almost each and every country are lockdown to stop the spread of Novel Coronavirus. The reason behind this is that we don't have any strong agent to fight this disease.
Among the several treatments being proposed to fight Covid-19 are drugs used to attack parasites. One such candidate that has been much in the news is hydroxychloroquine (a later version of the more toxic chloroquine), used to treat malaria and other inflammatory conditions. Well, I was not much familiar with this until I saw a video from Dagogo Altraide and later his tweet made me much excited to work on this article and go deeper on the Truth behind treatment of COVID-19.
What is Hydroxychloroquine?
They are synthetic forms of Quinine that has been used to treat malaria for centuries.
Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) came a decade later Chloroquine that has been used to treat Malaria since 1930s. It has a fewer side effects and is also used to treat other inflammatory condition.
Why are Anti-Malarials suddenly in Limelight?
In the era of existing drugs being evaluated, anti-malarials showed anecdotal evidence(evidence collected in a casual or informal manner and relying heavily or entirely on personal testimony) in improving outcomes.
According to the US Centre of Disease Control and Prevention, the drugs demonstrated in vitro - that is, in lab experiments outside of human organisms - activity against SARS-CoV-2 (called Covid-19) and other coronaviruses, with hydroxychloroquine having relatively higher potency. A Chinese study also reported that HCQ can efficiently inhibit SARS-CoV-2 infection in vitro(refers to the technique of performing a given procedure in a controlled environment outside of a living organism).
What is the evidence of its efficiency so far?
HCQ restrain the ability of Coronavirus to enter the cell. This is the observance in lab tests and it doesn't mean that the observation would be same in a person. It may be and it may not.
A report from China claimed that Chloroquine helped more than 100 patients in more than 10 hospitals. The report doesn't confirms that this drug help them in recovery as it says that they might have recovered without the use of drug.
The reports from France are lot more interesting. Hydroxychloroquine was given to 26 people with confirmed infections. Six also were given the antibiotic azithromycin. Six days later no patients given hydroxychloroquine plus azithromycin had virus detected versus 57% of those given the malaria drug alone and 12.5% of some other patients who received neither drug. But there were other issues with the study.
The Side Effects
Chloroquine as it serves could be an extremely toxic drug and may cause terrible side-effects as heart rhythm problems, severely low BP, blurred vision and muscle or nerve damage. Hydroxychloroquine is far safer than this but its side effects (nausea, light sensitivity etc.) are still significant.
US' top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said, "It was too early to say and that any 'anecdotal evidence' still needs validation in randomized clinical trials". French health minister Olivier Veran also said his government was against prescribing hydroxychloroquine or using it for anything other than severe cases.
The Twitter Trends
Well, behind this article is a tweet from Rudy W. Giuliani who said that, well take a look yourself.
But, some of the geeks suggested me to not take him so seriously. You can also have a look on that.
I will not say any words on these. I leave it completely on you to find who's correct among them.
The End Notes
Although evidence of chloroquine and HCQ is limited (based on the experimental data and only two small human trials), considering the potentially favorable benefit-risk balance of chloroquine and HCQ in absence of any other valid treatment option, we believe that such treatment could be useful in the current context of pandemic COVID-19 outbreak.
Thanks for everyone's participation in this. I want these kind of community learning more on The Notes, so that each one can understand opinions of every other one. That's all for today. If there is any mistake on this please correct me on the comment section below. And I will be back with more articles soon.
Cheers!
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