02-Jun-2020 | Market Research Store
The World Health Organization has temporarily stopped the clinical trials of hydroxychloriquine for treating COVID-19, which has been taken in several countries.
Last week there was a publication of a study in The Lancet indicating that the drug may increase the chances of patients dying; thus this decision was provoked said the WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
The chief said that the Solidarity Trial which is an executive group in which several hospitals of various countries have enrolled patients in order to test the possible treatments for the infection had suspended the usage of the drug for safety.
Tedros made the statement ,” The Executive Group has implemented a temporary pause of the hydroxychloroquine arm within the Solidarity Trial while the safety data is reviewed by the Data Safety Monitoring Board”.
Generally, hydroxychloroquine is used for treating arthritis, but pronouncements from the public figures about taking this drug as a precaution from COVID-19 has driven several governments to bulk purchase this drug.
In the study it was found that hydroxychloroquine and the anti-malarial chloroquine drug can lead to potentially serious side effects such as heart arrhythmia.
According to a Lancet study, it has cross-checked the records of 96,000 patients across different hospitals that neither drug proved beneficiary to the patients that were hospitalized with COVID-19.
WHO chief scientist, Soumya Swaminathan, further commented that they had been currently studying only the effects of hydroxychloroquine and not chloroquine.
She further added that it was a temporary measure taken by them to stop the use of hydroxychloroquine for treating COVID-19 infection.
As there are still no approved drugs or vaccines available in the market rapid measures are being taken by different countries to reduce the infection rate.
The report published by the Market Research Store on the global hydroxychloroquine market deals with all the points that have lead to an increased demand for this market in the last few months.