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You’ve probably heard a lot about the possible use of a
drug called hydroxychloroquine to
treat coronavirus
patients. And if you have, you’ve also probably heard a lot of
disagreement among politicians and scientists about how much weight to
throw behind it.
Important to note: There are no FDA-approved treatments
for Covid-19, and this drug is still being tested.
Still, President
Donald Trump himself called for doctors to prescribe
hydroxychloroquine to Covid-19 patients.
"I think people should [take hydroxychloroquine]," he told reporters at a White House press briefing on Saturday. "If it were me, in fact, I might do it anyway. I may take it ... I have to ask my doctors about that. But I may take it." Here’s what I want you to understand about this drug. There have only been very small studies of hydroxychloroquine. And there's been enthusiasm in the past for this particular drug as a potential treatment for flu -- a decade ago. Back then, it showed a lot of promise in the laboratory, but it didn't translate into human beings. It has to be tested before it can be called a game changer.
So far, it has only been trialed in patients with mild
disease. And there’s been some evidence in China that it may decrease
the duration of someone's symptoms, such as cough and fever, by about a
day or so.
Remember, the good news is that most patients with mild
forms of the disease are recovering regardless.
That also means if you're trialing a drug on patients
with mild disease, it's hard to really assess whether there's benefit
from the medication or not. That's why you have to do larger and larger
trials to make sure that's the case.
Everyone
is hopeful. Everybody wants a therapeutic of some sort, but we just
don't know yet. There are a lot of different trials going on, different
therapeutics. This is the one that's gotten a lot of the attention. But
it’s important to look for other promising options, too.
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