Old malaria drug hydroxychloroquine may help cure coronavirus: study (drugs, healthcare, deaths)

[ColoradoOnMyMind]

Originally Posted by hotkarl

NY trying it tomorrow.
I guess we'll see what happens in a week.

Fingers crossed!

[Goodnight]

Originally Posted by hotkarl

NY trying it tomorrow.
I guess we'll see what happens in a week.

Where is MY trying it.

[suzy_q2010]

Folks, what Trump said has no relevance to whether hydroxychloroquine plus or minus azithromycin is going to be a game changer in the treatment of COVID-19.

My impression is that it will be. It is unlikely to save everyone made seriously ill by the virus, but there is evidence that it can modify the course of the disease.

Why did anyone even think to try the drug? That is because it was already known to have antiviral properties. It had been used in trials in HIV infected patients and those with hepatitis and other viral illnesses with some success before other more effective drugs were available.

First, the basic science.

In the lab, it was found to inhibit infection and spread of the original SARS virus. From 2005:

https://www.researchgate.net/publica...ion_and_spread

"We report, however, that chloroquine has strong antiviral effects on SARS-CoV infection of primate cells. These inhibitory effects are observed when the cells are treated with the drug either before or after exposure to the virus, suggesting both prophylactic and therapeutic advantage."

The original SARS virus underwent a mutation that made it less infectious and the virus disappeared in the wild before the above study was even published, therefore there were no clinical trials.

Now the same effects have been demonstrated in the lab for SARS-CoV-19 with hydroxychloroquine. Note that hydroxychloroquine will be favored for treatment because it is less toxic than chloroquine, for those who are concerned about the reports of "two times the normal dose" being deadly. From this month:

Hydroxychloroquine was found to be more potent (in a lab study) than chloroquine, and the study demonstrated how the two drugs inhibit the virus.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41421-020-0156-0

Therefore, it can be plausibly inferred that there will be a therapeutic effect for chloroquine/hydroxychloroquine in treatment of COVID-19.

How about azithromycin? Again, some basic science. Azithromycin had already demonstrated antiviral and anti-inflammatory properties, here with a cold virus (rhinovirus).

https://erj.ersjournals.com/content/...e2=tf_ipsecsha

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4923851/

Question: how many here have ever asked your doctors for a "Z-Pak" for any upper respiratory or "sinus" infection, even when there was a high probability that the cause was viral - because you have gotten well faster in the past when you took it? I will go first: I have.

Next we have the clinical evidence. The French study:

https://www.mediterraneeinfection.co...l_DOI_IJAA.pdf

"We therefore recommend that COVID-19 patients be treated with hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin to
cure their infection and to limit the transmission of the virus to other people in order to curb the spread of COVID-19 in the world. Further works are also warranted to determine if these compounds could be useful as chemoprophylaxis to prevent the transmission of the virus, especially for healthcare workers. Our study has some limitations including a small sample size, limited long-term outcome follow-up, and dropout of six patients from the study, however in the current context, we believe that our results should be shared with the scientific community."

What are US doctors saying?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/these-d...od=openfreereg

"We have decades of experience in treating infectious diseases and dealing with epidemics, and we believe in safety and efficacy. We don’t want to peddle false hope; we have seen promising drugs turn out to be duds.

But the public expects an answer, and we don’t have the luxury of time. We have a drug with an excellent safety profile but limited clinical outcomes—and no better alternatives until long after this disaster peaks. We can use this treatment to help save lives and prevent others from becoming infected. Or we can wait several weeks and risk discovering we didn’t do everything we could to end this pandemic as quickly as possible."

I am doing my best to reduce my risk of exposure, but if it happens, will I ask about hydroxychloroquine?

You bet your sweet bippy - and a Z-Pak, too.

[Corrie22]

Originally Posted by BoBromhal

Oh, I googled your phrase as typed and found the CNN article .... didn't mean to imply you made it up in any way. It's more "I know I've seen the actual video clip and would like to find it again".

thanks Bo, I was showing you where I found it...

....I think I saw that video....and I think I saw it on Twitter....I can't find it at all either now

[Corrie22]

Originally Posted by suzy_q2010

My impression is that it will be. It is unlikely to save everyone made seriously ill by the virus, but there is evidence that it can modify the course of the disease.

suzy...you're wonderful....taking the time to put all of that together in one post

Thank you!!

..my sister is a pathologist working at ground zero....she's been taking hydroxychloroquine...just hydroxychloroquine, nothing else.....for almost two months now
still testing negative..and she's rubbing elbows with it every day

[BoBromhal]

I saw it around Feb 28 when he made it....or, among the 30 billion unnecessarily started threads since then, I actually watched the whole 1 hour photo/video op of African Americans at the White House.

google "February 28 Trump press conference" and the best you get is the entire hour.

it was MUCH easier to disprove the "there are some good people" hoax because it was a combination of Saturday and Monday pressers that last 15 minutes each

[beach43ofus]

Originally Posted by Goodnight

Where is MY trying it.

Wherever the top 1% are that have symptoms...of course.

[Neuling]

When you take that medicine and recuperate, will you be immune to the virus, i.e. have antibodies?
Just wondering because here they are already talking about the second corona wave and missing herd immunity.

[kamban]

Originally Posted by greywar

Notice how the study started with 26, and ended with 20? Why is that? 1 dropped out due to side effects, 1 DIED, and the rest were removed because they went to the ICU.


Yeah, your "study" looks great when you remove all the failures. So remember, in this study the death rate was almost 4%.


It still needs to be looked at because it DOES reduce viral loads, but I wouldn't pin your hopes on this being as useful as folks might think. It reminds me of the spanish flu pandemic where a recent miracle drug (aspirin if I remember right) was used, and contributed to increased deaths due to liver failure from getting too much of it.


The more things change the more they stay the same.

Looks like you have perused the pdf of the article. Yes, it was a tiny study and it was about virological clearance in this paper. The clinical effects will be published at the end of the trial.

If you look at the 6 who did not make it to the final 20
1. One stopped due to nausea - it must have been very severe since there are plenty of antiemetics that are used in cancer therapy that can easily control nausea.
2. One discharged himself against medical advice but was PCR negative.
3. Three went to ICU and all were PCR positive.
4. Surprising the patient that died was PCR negative - but we do not know enough about comorbidities and other factors that could have contributed to his death.

One surprise was that a mother and son did not respond to the hydroxychloroquine. It is speculated that metabolism of hydroxychloroquine or other genetic factors might have played a role.

You cannot compare this modern scientific study to a 1920 miracle drug aspirin, however much you try. It is small and clearing the virus from blood may not mean that they are going to benefit clinically. But when we have a pandemic and there is no effective antiviral agent or vaccine, the only thing we can do is to do clinical trials, especially with drugs that have shown promise in small studies. On that both of us agree.

[RcHydro]

Originally Posted by hotkarl

Sadly, you are wrong.
There are many, stupidly at their own expense, would still love to see Trump fail miserably at this. It's sick, but true.

You dont have to love it, just observe it. he does it constantly. He cant help himself at talking about things he has no information on. He's a BS artist always building on something for him to take the credit if it works out. If it fails. He will distance himself from it. Just the opposite of what I would call a stand up guy.