Ineffective hydroxychloroquine against mild COVID-19, according to US study

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The anti-malaria drug promoted by United States President Donald Trump as a COVID-19 treatment was ineffective for patients with a mild version of the disease in a study by researchers at the University of Minnesota.

About 24% of patients who received hydroxychloroquine in the study had persistent symptoms over a 14-day period, while approximately 30% of the placebo group were found to have persistent symptoms during the same period.

The difference was not statistically significant, the researchers said.

“Hydroxychloroquine did not substantially reduce the severity or prevalence of symptoms over time in non-hospitalized people with early COVID-19,” the researchers wrote in an article to be published in the Annals of Internal Medicine on Thursday.

The randomized, placebo-controlled study was performed in 491 outpatients. Due to the paucity of evidence in the United States, only 58% of participants were screened for the disease.

Although it was not a study endpoint, five people who received hydroxychloroquine were hospitalized or died from COVID-19, compared to eight people who received a placebo.

The study “provides strong evidence that hydroxychloroquine offers no benefit in patients with mild illness,” said Dr. Neil Schluger of New York Medical College in a comment on the study, which will also be published Thursday.

Trump’s vocal support raised expectations for the drug decades ago. In March, Trump said that hydroxychloroquine used in combination with the antibiotic azithromycin had “a real chance of being one of the biggest game-changers in the history of medicine” with little evidence to back up that claim. He later said he took the drugs preemptively after two people who worked at the White House were diagnosed with COVID-19.

But several placebo-controlled studies suggest that the drug is not effective in treating or preventing the disease.

“There is increasing data accumulating that hydroxychloroquine, at least by itself, has no effect,” said Dr. David Boulware, principal investigator of the trial at the University of Minnesota. “Most sensible people have started to move on and really look at other therapies.”