Right not to dispense

PHARMACISTS are being urged to exercise their right not to dispense hydroxychloroquine for the treat of COVID-19, unless the prescription has come from an infectious diseases specialist.

Responding to questions regarding the drugs use in the treatment of coronavirus, University of Wollongong Graduate School of Medicine, infectious diseases specialist and rheumatologist, Associate Professor Alistair Reid, told a Pharmaceutical Society of Australia (PSA) COVID-19 webinar last night, that there was little evidence to support the use of the medicine in the treatment of patient with coronavirus.

“There’s no evidence that it works,” he said.

“It has to be considered experimental for the use with coronavirus, and people who are prescribing hyrdoxychloroquine outside of randomised controlled trials, and they are not an infectious diseases physician, for the treatment of coronavirus, I think that’s inappropriate.

“My advice to your Society would be to exercise your right to refuse prescriptions that you do not think are appropriate.

“And my interpretation of that would be the only time you should be filling a prescription for hydroxychloroquine for a patient in relation to coronavirus should be if that script has been started in a hospital by a specialist, and that specialist preferably should be an infectious diseases specialist.”

Reid praised the PSA for its role in pushing for restrictions on who can initiate a patient’s use of hydroxychloroquine, to prevent GPs and resident medical staff from prescribing the drug for patients with COVID-19 in breach of Australian Health Protection Principal Committee guidelines.