chazzed said:
Hydroxycholoroquine may not be useful in the fight against COVID-19, and may be harmful:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/malaria-pill-hydroxycholoroquine-failed-help-211400013.html
Hydroxychloroquine has been proven to be effective against covid19 in widespread use in several countries if (and only if) properly administered, which definitely wasn't the case in these two studies:
Quote:
The patients who received hydroxychloroquine tended to be more severely ill than those who did not receive the drug. Authors of both studies noted that randomized controlled trials which assign patients either to the medication or a placebo control at random are needed.
HCQ is effective when used with Azithromycin and ideally, zinc supplements, and patients treated before the onset of late stage pulmonary damage, at which point the virus is no longer the main pathogen and HCQ is practically useless.
HCQ works as an adjuvant, by allowing the delivery of zinc into cell structures, zinc being a key ingredient of the immune system in the prevention of viral replication. The covid virus blocks the entrance of zinc into the cell.
The protocol for the use of HCQ was fine-tuned at the Institut Hospitalo-Universitaire in Marseille, France, where
the mortality rate of infected patients treated with HCQ was 7 times lower than in Paris, a site where HCQ was not used. IIRC a total of 26,000 covid patients were treated in Marseille, with very high success rates.
It was also found that in Italy, patients already on HCQ for conditions such as lupus and arthritis were found to be more than 90% less likely to contract covid19, so its use as prophylactic is definitely warranted. This is the scientific basis that has been presented to Trump, and the reason he is now using HCQ as a prophylactic. I think that Trump has gotten ahold of this through the very successful use of HCQ by Dr. Zelenko, who has treated patients in the Hasidic community of NYC.
https://nypost.com/2020/04/11/doctors-pols-urge-use-of-miracle-coronavirus-drug-cocktail/The adverse side effects (mostly heart arrhythmia) which have been much amplified in the media actually occurred at a rate of less than 1 in 500 in France. Those side effects are very well established, HCQ having been successfully used in the treatment of malaria and other diseases for nearly 70 years. It has been an OTC drug for decades, commonly administered to travelers to sub-saharan Africa and in nearly all other tropical regions subject to malaria.
HCQ is now approved and widely administered in Italy, and has been made available to anyone presenting covid or flu symptoms free of charge across all pharmacies in northern Italy.
Several countries have ordered large quantities of HCQ including the UK, Canada and most of Africa. Algeria has recently received a huge order of HCQ, while most African countries already have large stocks and are starting to use it for covid19 treatment. Going into June, there will be a global run on HCQ similar to the run on masks and ventilators that took place earlier this year, once the unfounded, largely cultural resistance to HCQ recedes. There is a plentiful global supply to treat all covid patients, but not enough to treat a much bigger pool of people for preventive use the way Trump is currently using it.
There is still a lot of resistance against its use in many western nations, partly because there are no profits in HCQ, a very old generic drug which has a total treatment cost of around $10 per patient, vs well over $1,000 for new patented drugs like Gilead's Remdesivir whose effectiveness hasn't been proven, or vs. the trillion dollar global vaccine program, which HCQ could render unnecessary. In the US and other western countries, big pharma dominates the political landscape and the media, being one of the largest lobbyist and advertiser, as well as being a dominant influence over the medical establishment and research centers, which it largely funds.
In the US as well HCQ has become associated with Trump, which has exacerbated the negative media coverage and cultural bias against it in a large segment of the media and population. This is a very unfortunate turn of events IMHO as HCQ has proven to be one of the main/best exit strategies for the covid pandemic.