Even as the worst affected country from Coronavirus the United States is not able to contain the spread of the outbreak, President Donald Trump is feeling “absolutely great” after taking a two-week dose of antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine and will take it again if he thinks he is exposed to the Coronavirus, a top White House official has said.
“I went to him just before coming out here and I asked him that. And he said, ”he”s feeling perfect”, he is ”feeling absolutely great” after taking this regimen. And, he would take it again if he thought that he was exposed,” White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnaney said on Thursday when asked how the US president was feeling after taking the antimalarial drug.
Donald Trump has claimed to be taking the medicine many a times.
This comes even as the World Health Organization (WHO) has decided to “temporarily” suspend clinical trial of the anti-malaria drug on COVID-19 patients, even as several countries, including India and the United States have seen Hydroxychloroquine as a potential cure for the Coronavirus infection.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on May 26, that a clinical trial of Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) on COVID-19 patients has come to “a temporary pause”, while the safety data of the the anti-malaria drug was being reviewed.
Meanwhile, the United States’ Food and Drug Administration has cautioned against the use of Hydroxychloroquine on COVID-19 patients even as President Donald Trump, who has touted it as a “game changer,” advocated for an additional review.
The FDA’s announcement came a day after the European Union’s drug regulator warned of side effects of the drug, urging medical professionals to closely monitor patients on the medicine.The FDA has allowed healthcare providers to use the drugs for COVID-19 through its emergency use authorization, but has not approved them to treat the disease.
Hydroxychloroquine, first approved in 1955, provided no benefit and potentially higher risk of death for patients at US veterans hospitals, according to an analysis that was submitted for an expert review in April.
Hydroxychloroquine sulfate was first synthesised in 1946 and is in a class of medications historically used to treat and prevent malaria. It is approved by the US Food and Drug Administration to treat malaria, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, childhood arthritis, and other autoimmune diseases.
Many experts have underscored the prophylaxis use of hydroxychloroquine. One such paper by Tina Hesman Saey author at ScienceNews.org talks about nearly 200 clinical trials around the world, including 28 involving healthcare workers, she said.
In fact, at Henry Ford Hospital in Michigan, 3,000 healthcare workers are taking it as part of a trial. And there”s some really excellent information there about the use of prophylaxis for this,” the press secretary said.
Responding to questions, McEnany said that a number of doctors and researchers have been coming out in support of hydroxychloroquine. “It”s not specific to the President, these doctors. But they just talk in general about what they”ve seen.
For instance, Sarah Lofgren, an infectious disease doctor at the University of Minnesota Medical School in Minneapolis – they’re testing hydroxychloroquine there to prevent COVID-19. And she said, ”When used alone, we”re not seeing major issues. Out of the thousands of patients, we’re not seeing things that some people are concerned about”,” she said.
McEnany also said that it was always important to get a prescription from doctor if one wished to take hydroxychloroquine.
“Doctors are the ones that need to be prescribing this,” she said.
“But that being said, I think that some of the hyperbole around this drug that has been on the market for 65 years – been approved for use in three other maladies and has been approved for off-label use – when there”s a lot of hyperbole about this being unsafe – some of the things I”ve seen reported out there – are consequences, deterring people from being recruited into actual clinical trials,” McEnany said.
“I have some quotes from a New York epidemiologist and others conducting trials, saying they”re having trouble recruiting people because some of the myths that are out there. So it’s important to note that this drug has been safely used by millions of people for a long time,” she said in response to a question.
After Trump announced early this month that he was taking hydroxychloroquine as a preventive measure against coronavirus, a number of Indian-American doctors have written to the Trump Campaign about the usefulness of this antimalaria drug in the fight against COVID-19.
Some of them even said that they had been taking the drug.
“Hydroxychloroquine is a very safe drug used by millions all over the world over several decades,” American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI) president Dr Suresh Reddy said in a recent letter to Al Mason, co-chair of the Trump Victory Indian American Finance Committee.
“On a personal note, several of my friends including me, have been taking Hydroxychloroquine,” Reddy said.
In a statement, Mason said Trump had taken unprecedented steps to respond to the coronavirus crisis.
“He took swift action to shut down travel from where the virus originated – China,” he added.
Observing that the unprecedented global pandemic is testing every world leader, he said that nations were judging their leaders on a daily basis.
“A pandemic was never a subject for any world leader to have to have a mastery over, yet Trump has a handle now on every facet related to the coronavirus,” Mason said.
The US acquired millions of doses of hydroxychloroquine and stockpiled it, including 29 million doses of the mdicine from India, and at the request of President Donald Trump, it cleared the export of 35.82 lakh tablets of the drug to the US along with nine metric tons of active pharmaceutical ingredient or API required in the manufacturing of the drug.
Ever since the deadly virus spread across nations, Hydroxychloroquine has become one of the most highly demanded drugs worldwide.
At 1,721,750 United States has reported maximum number of cases in the world. 1,01,616 people have died in the United States, more than the number of Americans killed in the Vietnam and Korean wars combined. While, globally over 5,808,000 people have been infected with the virus with the death toll at 360,308, according to Johns Hopkins data.