Covid-19: WHO halts hydroxychloroquine trial to review links with increased mortality risk
Abstract
The World Health Organization has halted testing of hydroxychloroquine in patients with covid-19 after a study found that the drug was linked with an increased risk of mortality and heart arrhythmias.
The study, published in the Lancet ,1 included more than 96 000 patients admitted to hospital with covid-19 in six continents from December 2019 to April 2020. Compared with those who did not receive the drugs, people treated with chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine (with or without a macrolide) showed an increased risk of dying in hospital and de novo ventricular arrhythmia.
The researchers have said that these drug regimens should not be used to treat covid-19 outside clinical trials and called for urgent confirmation of the findings from randomised clinical trials.
Hydroxychloroquine has been backed by the US president, Donald Trump, who said that it had shown “very, very encouraging early results,” that it was “not going to kill anybody,”2 and that he had actually taken it for weeks to prevent himself from getting the virus.
The New York Times has reported that shareholders and executives tied to Trump stand to profit if hydroxychloroquine …
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