Anti-malarial drug ‘has no benefit’ to Covid-19 patients

RESEARCHERS CONDUCTING a clinical trial into potential Covid-19 treatments have ended the part of their research examining an anti-malarial drug taken by US President Donald Trump after it was found to have no clinical benefit.

Professor Peter Horby and Professor Martin Landray, chief investigators of the university’s Recovery trials, said that hydroxychloroquine showed no benefit for patients being treated in hospital with the virus.

The Oxford trial, which includes more than 11,000 people, involves a number of medications that are licensed for use in other conditions, including hydroxychloroquine.

However, after reviewing the data, Prof Landray, deputy chief investigator of the trial, said: “We have concluded that there is no beneficial effect of hydroxychloroquine in patients hospitalised with Covid-19.

“We have therefore decided to stop enrolling participants to the hydroxychloroquine arm of the recovery trial with immediate effect.”

Some 1,542 people were involved in the hydroxychloroquine part of the trial and researchers found that 25.7 per cent of patients who were in the hydroxychloroquine arm died after 28 days, compared with 23.5 per cent of people with standard care alone.

The trial also found there was no benefit on the length of a person’s hospital stay or any other outcomes.

Prof Landray told reporters: “If you’re admitted to hospital with

Covid, you, your mother, your friend, or anybody else, hydroxychloroquine is not the right treatment, it doesn’t work.”

Mr Trump caused global controversy by revealing he had taken hydroxychloroquine, despite a lack of evidence that it was a valid treatment against coronavirus.