Hydroxychloroquine, a drug touted by President Donald Trump as a game changer has proven to be ineffective in corona virus patients and on top of that caused adverse heart complications.
Patients who received Hydroxychloroquine still needed mechanical ventilation and had higher deaths rates compared to those who did not take the drug, according to a survey of hundreds of patients at US Veterans Health Administration medical centers.
The study, which reviewed veterans’ medical charts was posted on Tuesday in medrxiv.org, a pre-print server, indicating it’s not peer reviewed or published in a medical journal. The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the University of Virginia.
In the investigation of 368 patients, 97 patients who took hydroxychloroquine had a 27.8% mortality rate. The 158 patients who didn’t take the medication had a 11.4% death rate.
By and large risen mortality was recognized in patients treated with hydroxychloroquine alone. These discoveries feature the significance of anticipating the aftereffects of continuous imminent, randomized, controlled studies before global adoption of these medications,” wrote the authors, who work at the Columbia VA Health Care System in South Carolina, the University of South Carolina and the University of Virginia.
Scientists additionally saw in the case of taking hydroxychloroquine or a blend of hydroxychloroquine and the anti-toxin azithromycin, affected whether a patient expected to.
In this study, we found no proof that use of hydroxychloroquine, either with or without a combination of azithromycin, reduced the risk of mechanical ventilation in hospitalized patients with Covid-19,” the authors claim.
Currently there are no products approved by the US Food and Drug Administration to prevent or treat Covid-19, although research is in the pipeline on many medications.