Hydroxychloroquine and remdesivir not effective in covid-19 treatment: WHO

Posted on 17th Oct 2020 by rohit kumar

The World Health Organization has identified four drugs, including remadecivir and hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), to be much less effective in treating corona virus-infected patients.

 

The World Health Organization (WHO) conducted a detailed test on how effective four particular drugs are in the treatment of Covid-19.

 

Remadecivir was the first drug that was first used to treat the coronavirus. This drug was also recently used in the treatment of US President Donald Trump.

 

Gilead, the maker of Remedesivir, has rejected the results of the WHO study.

 

Gilead issued a statement saying that the findings of the study do not match those of other studies and these results are yet to be reviewed.

 

WHO SAYS WHO'S STUDY

 

The WHO tested a total of four drugs during the Solidarity trial. Including remdesivir , hydroxychloroquine, auto-immune drug interferon, and a combination of HIV drugs lopinavir and ritonavir.

 

The low-cost steroid dexamethasone used in the treatment of severe Covid-19 patients in Britain has not been included in this study.

 

These four drugs were tested in 11,266 adult patients in 500 hospitals in 30 different countries.

 

WHO results have found that these drugs have not proved effective in saving patients' lives and also reducing the days of infection. However, these results are yet to be reviewed.

 

WHO Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan said on Wednesday that the testing of hydroxychloroquine and lopinavir and ritonavir was stopped in June as they had already proved ineffective. However, tests on other drugs were continued.

 

The results of the World Health Organization are completely different from the results of Gilead's study last month. Gilead had said that the time to recover from comrades virus is reduced by five days compared to patients given placebo. Gilead's trial involved 1000 patients.

 

Gilead's response

 

Gilead Sciences has dismissed the WHO results, saying, "This data looks inconsistent." The benefits of remdesivir are evidenced by more concrete evidence from academic and controlled studies published in several journals.

 

"We are concerned that this open (open) labeled global test data has not gone through rigorous review, which is necessary for such useful scientific discussion."

 

In the United States, the use of remdesivir has been allowed in an emergency from May 1. After this, its use was also approved in many other countries.

 

At the same time, hydroxychloroquine is used on the instructions of the doctor to protect against coronavirus infection. However, there is no clear evidence of how effective it is.

 

Looking at these results, Dr. Swaminathan says, "We are considering monoclonal antibodies and some new anti-viral drugs that have been developed in the last few months."

Other news