GENEVA (Sputnik) – The World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Saturday that it would suspend trials of hydroxychloroquine and the combination of lopinavir / ritonavir for treatment, as part of its tests to find effective remedies against the coronavirus pandemic COVID- 19 in progress.
“The WHO today accepted the recommendation of the International Steering Committee of the Solidarity Trial to suspend the hydroxychloroquine and lopinavir / ritonavir arms of the trial. The Solidarity Trial was established by the WHO to find an effective COVID-19 treatment for hospitalized patients,” said the organization in a press. launching.
Remdesivir, hydroxychloroquine, and lopinavir / ritonavir were tested in the first solidarity trial, which the WHO has conducted since March. The trials involved more than 4,500 patients.
“The International Steering Committee formulated the recommendation in light of the evidence for hydroxychloroquine versus the standard of care and lopinavir / ritonavir versus the standard of care for the interim results of the Solidarity trial, and a review of the evidence from all trials presented at the WHO Summit July 1-2 on COVID-19 research and innovation, “WHO said.
The organization said the two drugs were found to “produce little or no reduction in the mortality of hospitalized patients with COVID-19” compared to the existing standard of care. The WHO added that it has seen no evidence that the two drugs increase mortality, noting, however, that “some associated safety signs” have been reported by the complementary Discovery trial, a participant in the Solidarity trial.
“This decision applies only to conducting the Solidarity trial in hospitalized patients and does not affect possible evaluation in other studies of hydroxychloroquine or lopinavir / ritonavir in non-hospitalized patients or as pre-exposure or post-exposure prophylaxis for COVID-19,” he noted. the organization.
After four months of clinical trials, WHO experts said remdesivir was currently the most effective of all the drugs tested.
On Saturday, global cases of COVID-19 were reported to have increased by 212,326, a record increase in 24 hours, to bring the estimated global total of infected people to at least 11,100,000. To date, there have been at least 527,827 deaths as a result of the pandemic, with an increase of 5,134 in the past 24 hours.
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