https://www.dailysignal.com/2020/08/01/hydroxychloroquine-covid-19/?utm_source=rss&
The buzz surrounding the drug hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 began to die down until early July and the results of 2,500-person study. Pictured: A pharmacy employee displays a box of Plaqueni, a brand name for hydroxychloroquine, May 28 in Paris. (Photo: Marc Piasecki/Getty Images)
Early in health officials’ response to the pandemic, one drug offered hope of a safe, widely available, and cheap therapeutic that would break the death grip that COVID-19 held on the world.
However, after its promised efficacy didn’t materialize in large, statistically significant numbers, enthusiasm for the drug, hydroxychloroquine, quickly waned. Why, then, has it made its way back into the headlines?
When it was first suggested that hydroxychloroquine may be an effective antiviral against the new coronavirus, which scientists call SARS-CoV-2, the U.S. government purchased and delivered the drug by the millions of doses even before research could prove its efficacy.
At the time, what scarce data was available suggested it would work, and waiting much longer would’ve been unethical. After all, the drug has a decadeslong history of use to treat malaria.
But with those millions of doses being administered, clinicians found only mixed results. Some, as in the early French trial, found tremendous success, while many others found no clinical benefit.