County patients to receive emergency ‘cure’ treatment for free
HAMILTON » Just what the doctor ordered!
A promising treatment for COVID-19 disease will benefit many Mercer County residents suffering from the respiratory illness.
Greenhill Pharmacy has partnered with the townships of Hamilton, Robbinsville and East Windsor to provide hydroxychloroquine sulfate, in combination with the antibiotic Zithromax, to treat COVID-19-positive patients throughout Mercer County at no cost, officials announced Thursday.
Hydroxychloroquine sulfate is a powerful drug commonly used as a treatment for malaria, but research shows it may provide major relief to inpatients sickened with coronavirus.
This Greenhill Pharmacy initiative comes at a time when Mercer County has 386 positive cases of COVID-19 and four deaths as of Thursday afternoon.
“On behalf of everyone in Hamilton,” Mayor Jeff Martin said Thursday in a press statement, “I want to thank Greenhill Pharmacy as well as East Windsor and Robbinsville Townships for their partnership in our joint effort to fight COVID-19 and help the residents in our extended communities.”
Greenhill Pharmacy has headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, and operates a local outlet in East Windsor. Effective Friday, the pharmacy will supply COVID-19 patients and area hospitals with key drugs in the fight against the global pandemic, a godsend for Mercer County residents with or without medical insurance.
“Thank you to Greenhill Pharmacy for not only helping Robbinsville, Hamilton and East Windsor, but all of Mercer County as we push forward together through this crisis,” Robbinsville Mayor Dave Fried said Thursday in a press statement. “We are doing everything we possibly can to minimize the damage in this war against a potent, invisible enemy.”
East Windsor Mayor Janice Mironov also thanked Greenhill Pharmacy in a statement, saying they are “always a pro-active local caring company, which once again has stepped up as our partner in this vital effort to help our communities at this critical time.”
Treatment protocol
Dr. Philippe Gautret and other medical experts have drafted an article suggesting that hydroxychloroquine when used in combination with the antibiotic azithromycin or Zithromax is efficient for treating COVID-19 patients.
“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,” the Gautret team concludes in their article, which was slated to appear in the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration last week granted emergency use authorization for hydroxychloroquine sulfate to be used as a treatment for certain COVID-19 patients who are hospitalized with the respiratory disease.
Hamilton Township as of Thursday afternoon had 66 active cases of COVID-19, according to the township’s website.
Robbinsville has 14 residents who have tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, according to Mayor Fried. None are hospitalized, Fried said Thursday, but he didn’t know about their conditions.
The number of COVID-19 cases is expected to rise in Mercer County and beyond as the virus spreads and more people get tested.
New Jersey as of Thursday afternoon had more than 25,000 cases of COVID-19 and over 500 deaths as the state maintains social distancing guidelines in an effort to save lives.
Fried expects the number of COVID-19 cases in Robbinsville to go up, he said, particularly because Mercer County is testing scores of county residents at a drive-up test site in Lawrence Township.
Fried said he feels “fantastic” and has no immediate plans to get tested for coronavirus.
Ewing Mayor Bert Steinmann confirmed he had tested positive for COVID-19, and The Trentonian has learned that Mercer County Freeholder Nina Melker also contracted the disease.
Melker was hospitalized for several days last month before being discharged March 25, she said Thursday in an interview with The Trentonian, adding she now feels “great” and that hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin helped her recover.
Trenton Mayor Reed Gusciora told The Trentonian he got tested as a precaution because of the number of people he interacts with daily. His police director Sheilah Coley tested positive, and his chief of staff Yoshi Manale has been isolating at his home in New York after experiencing mild symptoms of the virus.
Manale hasn’t been tested to confirm a diagnosis.