The World Health Organisation (WHO) says it is stopping
hydroxychloroquine solidarity trial for the treatment of COVID-19 patients.
This comes three days after the United States Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) withdrew its approval for the emergency use of
hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, saying they may not be effective for the
infection.
WHO said evidence has shown that hydroxychloroquine, an
anti-malaria drug, does not reduce the mortality rate of COVID-19.
“The Solidarity Trial’s hydroxychloroquine arm is being
stopped, on the basis of evidence showing it does not reduce mortality for
hospitalised #COVID19 patients,” it said.
WHO earlier suspended the trial on the use of the drug for
the treatment of COVID-19 patients after a study published by The Lancet claimed
chloroquine had no positive effect on the treatment of COVID-19 among 96,032
sampled patients.
The study also reported a higher mortality rate among those
who used the drug.
But on June 3, the organisation made a U-turn and said it
was resuming clinical trial of the drug.
This was after a report revealed that the clinical trial of
the drug was suspended based on questionable data.
Tedros Ghebreyesus, the WHO director-general, said findings
by the WHO data safety monitoring board revealed that there was no reason to
discontinue the trial after reviewing available data on the drug.
However, another drug, dexamethasone has been described as a
breakthrough in the fight against the deadly disease.
Medical researchers from Oxford University said
dexamethasone, a steroid widely-used for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis
and asthma, can help high-risk COVID-19 patients recover fast.
Reacting, WHO described the development as a “very welcome
news” for those patients with severe illness.
It said it has started to coordinate a meta-analysis pooling
data from several clinical trials “to increase our understanding of this
intervention”.
“And, we will update our clinical guidance to reflect how
and when dexamethasone should be used to treat COVID-19,” the global health
agency said.
Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday
Advertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com