Some small preliminary studies published a month ago
suggested that the anti-malarial drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, in combination with the antibiotic azithromycin, might be a potent treatment for COVID-19. Subsequently, at a March 19 press conference, President Trump
touted chloroquine, an analog of hydroxychloroquine, as a treatment for COVID-19. "It's shown very encouraging, very, very encouraging early results, and we're going to be able to make that drug available almost immediately, and that's where the FDA has been so great," said the president.
Obviously, it would be tremendously
good news if chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine turn out to be really effective in treating COVID-19. Unfortunately, more recent research is
not validating that hope.
A new
nationwide retrospective study of patients treated at Veterans Administration medical centers is providing the largest dataset yet reported on the outcomes of COVID-19 patients treated with hydroxychloroquine, with or without azithromycin, anywhere in the world. The results are unfortunately not promising.
"Hydroxychloroquine use with or without co-administration of azithromycin did not improve mortality or reduce the need for mechanical ventilation in hospitalized patients," reported the researchers, who are affiliated with the Universities of Virginia and South Carolina. "On the contrary," they added, "hydroxychloroquine use alone was associated with an increased risk of mortality compared to standard care alone."
The fact that this is an observational study rather than a randomized controlled trial is an important caveat with respect to evaluating its conclusions. The study assessed 368 male patients treated for COVID-19 at Veterans Health Administration medical centers. In the study, 97 patients were treated with hydroxychloroquine (HC), another 113 received hydroxychloroquine in combination with the antibiotic azithromycin (HC+AZ), and 158 were not treated with hydroxychloroquine (no HC), receiving standard supportive management.