Covid, State Council: yes, hydroxychloroquine treatment

The doctors’ requests about hydroxychloroquine had been brought to the attention of the Health Commission on several occasions by Councilor Icardi, with the AIFA leaders hearing to clarify the use of the drug. Icardi had taken as an example the experience of the Acqui Ovada district, of the ASL of Alessandria, which from March 18 to April 30 had taken over and was still at home, early, through the protocol “Covi a casa” of the Dr. Paola Varese who foresaw the use of hydroxychloroquine, 340 patients, with a drastic reduction in hospitalizations, in contrast to the data from the same province, one of the most affected in Piedmont.

In fact, out of 340 patients, there were 22 hospitalizations and 9 deaths, painful numbers, but clearly lower than expected based on epidemiological data. The Piedmontese data were also compared with the experiences of other Lombardy doctors, Emilia Romagna and Friuli, with an extraordinary agreement of results. “The persistent uncertainty about the therapeutic efficacy of hydroxychloroquine, admitted by Aifa itself to justify further evaluation in randomized clinical trials – the ruling of the State Council is now being read – is not sufficient legal reason to justify the unreasonable suspension of its use in the national territory by the treating doctors. The choice to use the drug or not, in a situation of doubt and conflict in the scientific community, based on non-unambiguous clinical data, on its efficacy in the only initial stage of the disease, therefore, should be left to the Decision-making autonomy and the responsibility of the individual physician in science and conscience “.