HCQ trial halted over doubts on benefits
nNEW DELHI: A major trial of the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine was halted in the UK on Friday after scientists found it provided “no benefit” for patients hospitalised with the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), but with several trials still under way, the last word is still awaited on the drug’s effectiveness against the viral ailment, scientists said.
The preliminary results of the UK’S Recovery trial were released a day after a flawed study that raised safety concerns about hydroxychloroquine was retracted from the highly cited British medical journal, The Lancet, following scientific scrutiny.
Following The Lancet study, the World Health Organization (WHO) suspended the hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine arm of its multi-country Solidarity Trail to validate four experimental Covid-19 treatments, but announced on Wednesday that the trials had been resumed. Researchers from the Recovery trial said they will share their data with the WHO.
The Recovery trial is a randomised clinical trial, considered the gold standard for clinical investigation, that used data from 11,000 patients in 175 hospitals in the UK to study the benefits of several experimental treatments against Covid-19. For the malaria drugs study, 1,542 patients were randomly assigned to hydroxychloroquine, and compared with 3,132 patients on standard hospital care.
Unlike previous trials that found increased risk of death, the Recovery trial found no significant difference in deaths between the two groups after 28 days. Treating patients with hydroxichloroquine did not shorten a patient’s hospital stay. “If you are admitted to hospital, don’t take hydroxychloroquine. It doesn’t work,” said Martin Landray, professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of Oxford, and deputy chief investigator of the Recovery trial, which has stopped recruiting patients on hydroxychloroquine treatment with immediate effect.
Some 203 Covid-19 trials with hydroxychloroquine are under way, 60 of which were focused on prophylaxis (preventive care), registered with Clinicaltrials.gov, the world’s the largest clinical trials database.
“We need to stop discussing hydroxychloroquine and wait for further study results. Unless there is clear evidence, it doesn’t help the public. Clinical trials must be completed, and that takes time,” Dr Soumya Swaminathan, chief scientist at WHO, told HT.
Hydroxychloroquine is a century-old malaria drug that is also approved for treating autoimmune conditions such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. It’s been in the spotlight as a possible treatment for Covid.