Hydroxychloroquine Flops as Treatment for Mild COVID-19 Patients

Once hailed by President Trump and others as a possible treatment for COVID-19, the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine continues to a thumbs down in a number of human studies, most recently for treatment of patients with mild infections and for hospitalized patients.

Researchers at the University of Minnesota reported results from the first randomized, controlled trial evaluating the drug as an early treatment for mild COVID-19 patients who were not hospitalized. The trial enrolled 491 patients in the U.S. and Canada, who received either hydroxychloroquine or a placebo for five days.

Patients given the drug showed no significant benefit over the placebo group in terms of  persistent symptoms 14 days into the trial, hospitalizations and deaths, according to results published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Among the patients who recovered, those given the drug recovered faster, but the difference was not deemed statistically significant.

Meanwhile, new data from the UK’s Recovery trial showed that hydroxychloroquine had no benefit for hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Of the patients who received the drug, 26.8 percent died within 28 days of starting treatment compared to 25 percent of those who only received standard care.

Patients given the antimalarial drug had a lower chance of being discharged alive after 28 days, according to the non-peer-reviewed results published online by medRxiv.

UK researchers shut down the hydroxychloroquine arm of the Recovery trial in early June, saying the drug had shown no beneficial effect.

Access the Minnesota study here: bit.ly/2CpqMiq.

Access the Recovery trial data here: bit.ly/396aoiV. — Jordan Williams